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MARGARET   DELAND 

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HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS,  N.  Y. 


(See  p.  34 


POSTAL      DELAYS" 


PARTNERS 


BY 

MARGARET    DELAND 


ILLUSTRATED    BY 
CHARLES  DANA  GIBSON 


HARPER  6r   BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

NEW    YORK    AND     LONDON 

MCMX  HI 


COPYRIGHT.    1891,     1913.    BY    HARPER    A    BROTHERS 

PRINTED   IN    THE    UNITED   STATES   OF  AMERICA 

PUBLISHED   OCTOBER.    1913 


I-N 


,033? 


TO 
L.    F.    D 


KENNEBUNKPORT 
JUNE   3O,   1913 


281458 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"POSTAL  DELAYS" Frontispiece 

MRS.  GEDGE  WAS  READY  TO  SAY  ANYTHING, 
IF  ONLY  SHE  COULD  CHEER  'MANDY  UP 
A  LITTLE Facing  p.  24 

THE   ADMIRATION   OF   THE   ALBUM    ....          "  48 

"i  LIKE  YOU,  'MANDY" "       112 


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PARTNERS 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  post-office  in  Purham  was  at  the 
foot  of  a  long  hill,  around  which 
curved,  like  a  bending  arm,  a  little  rush 
ing  brown  brook.  Main  Street  climbed 
this  hill  a  little  way,  then  paused  at  a 
watering-trough — a  hollowed  log,  mossy 
and  dripping  and  bordered  with  wet 
ferns;  after  that  the  street  melted  into 
a  country  road  which  wandered  through 
the  fields,  ending  as  a  neighborhood 
lane  for  the  convenience  of  half  a  dozen 
houses  which  were  only  occupied  during 
that  part  of  the  year  in  which  the  "sum 
mer  people,"  as  they  were  called,  invaded 
the  Purham  quiet.  The  houses  along 
Main  Street  stood  close  together  in  a 


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friendly  way,  turning  their  backs— 
whenever  they  could — on  the  preten 
tious  residences  above  them.  Purham 
acknowledged  that  the  people  who  lived 
in  the  hill  cottages — cottages,  if  you 
please!  into  whose  front  parlors  you 
could  almost  put  a  whole  Purham  house; 
—had  a  certain  value;  but  it  looked 
down  upon  them  as  one  does  look  down 
upon  the  merely  useful.  Purham  ad 
mitted  that  they  were  useful;  they 
meant  trade,  and  trade  meant  money 
in  the  bank.  They  also  meant  fuss  and 
foolery  and  idleness — which  would  have 
been  a  bad  example  for  youth  had  there 
been  any  youth  in  Purham.  But  as 
Purham  boys  and  girls  grew  up  they 
hurried  away  into  the  world, — and  the 
bad  example  could  not  hurt  Purham's 
old  age  and  childhood;  as  for  its  care- 
taking  middle  age,  that  was  protected 
by  its  own  slow  contempt,  softened  by 
amusement,  for  the  whole  bil'in'  of  them 
hill  folks. 


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The  village  was  small;  forty  houses, 
perhaps,  besides  the  Post-office  and  the 
tavern,  which  last  was  frequented  by 
drummers  with  sample-trunks,  and  itin 
erant  dentists,  or  an  occasional  photog 
rapher  who  offered  to  make  a  crayon 
portrait  of  any  of  your  deceased  rela 
tives,  provided  you  could  give  him  a 
tintype  and  ten  dollars.  Purham  houses 
were  all  made  on  one  pattern,  inside 
and  out:  a  story  and  a  half  high,  with 
a  room  on  each  side  of  a  narrow  entry, 
which  was  generally  so  dark  that  one 
could  not  see  the  pattern  of  the  oil 
cloth.  But  that  was  an  advantage  if 
the  oil-cloth  was  shabby.  Each  house 
had  a  shed  at  right  angles  to  the 
kitchen.  All  the  best  rooms  had  the 
same  cold,  musty  smell — perhaps  be 
cause  the  windows  were  not  often 
opened,  owing  to  a  tendency  to  stick 
which  sometimes  kept  them  shut  from 
one  spring-cleaning  to  another. 

Except  at  a  meeting  of  the  sewing- 
3 


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society  or  at  a  funeral,  Purham  parlors 
never  saw  the  light,  although  they  held 
the  choicest  possessions  of  the  house 
hold.  The  crayon  portraits  hung  upon 
their  walls,  and  the  framed  funeral 
wreaths;  braided  rugs  protected  their 
carpets  from  infrequent  feet  or  the  rare 
intrusion  of  sunshine.  The  center-tables 
in  these  melancholy  rooms  held  the 
family  Bible,  and,  standing  on  a  wool 
mat,  an  astral  lamp  which  awaited  an 
occasion  important  enough  to  be  lighted ; 
an  occasion  so  long  in  coming  that  often 
the  oil  was  thick  and  yellow  in  the  red 
or  green  glass  bowl. 

There  was,  however,  one  house  on 
Main  Street — a  little  gray  house  fronting 
the  elm-shaded  common — which  was  not 
on  the  Purham  lines.  Old  Mrs.  Gedge 
lived  in  this  house  with  her  daughter 
Amanda;  and  though  they  followed  the 
village  standards  as  well  as  they  could 
in  other  things,  they  were  conspicuous — 
and  important — because  they  had  no 
4 


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parlor.  But  as  if  to  make  up  for  this 
deficiency,  their  house  had  two  front 
doors.  One  opening  into  the  entry,  for 
family  use;  the  other  into  the  room  that 
should  have  been  the  parlor.  From  a 
pole  above  this  second  door  blew  out 
bravely  an  American  flag,  beneath  which 
was  nailed  a  weatherbeaten  sign: 

"U.S.  Post-Office" 

In  that  room — which  had  once  been 
as  good  a  parlor  as  anybody  else's!— 
there  was  no  bowing  to  Purham  custom ; 
no  center  table  or  astral  lamp,  no 
crayon  portraits  —  nothing  but  busi 
ness! 

It  was  divided  by  a  partition  in  which 
were  rows  of  pigeonholes.  There  was  a 
counter  on  one  side,  and  a  show-case. 
Some  shelves  between  the  front  windows 
held  immemorial  green  pasteboard  boxes, 
their  corners  strengthened  by  strips  of 
linen  pasted  along  each  angle;  there 
was  writing-paper  in  these  boxes,  pale 

2  5 


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pink  and  yellow,  with  fine  blue  ruling, 
and  perhaps  a  picture  at  the  top  of 
each  sheet.  In  the  show-case  were  bits 
of  jewelry  pasted  upon  yellowing  cards, 
and  some  scent  bottles,  and  bottles  of 
red  and  blue  ink;  standing  on  its 
scratched  and  dim  glass  top  were  three 
jars  which  held  red  and  white  kisses, 
little  hard  gumdrops,  and  fat  black 
sticks  of  licorice.  The  only  decorations 
in  the  room  were  posters  of  county  fairs 
and  of  traveling  bell-ringers;  one  as  re 
cent  as  within  two  years. 

In  the  open  space  in  front  of  the  par 
tition  was  a  small  air-tight  stove,  melon- 
shaped  and  rusty;  one  chair  stood  near 
this  stove,  but  one  only.  "/  would 
have  more  chairs  if  it  was  mine,  this 
post-office,"  said  Mrs.  Gedge,  "but  it 
is  a  place  for  business,  not  sociality, 
so  the  Government  don't  provide  chairs ; 
and  it  ain't  for  me  to  seem  to  criticize 
by  bringing  in  more  than  one  of  my 


own.'1 


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Mrs.  Gedge  and  Amanda  had  lived 
in  Purham  all  their  lives,  and  in  the 
social  life  of  Main  Street  had  held  their 
unassailable  position;  but  since  those 
pigeonholes  had  been  put  into  the  parlor 
(twenty  years  ago  now) — since  that 
time  the  two  women,  tranquilly  aging 
under  the  shadow  of  the  flag,  had  grown 
vastly  more  important.  They  were  the 
custodians  of  the  United  States  mail; 
they  were  intrusted  with  public  moneys ; 
they  had  communications  with  Wash 
ington;  it  was  reported,  although  care 
fully  not  asserted  by  either  mother  or 
daughter,  that  they  had  had  a  letter 
from  the  President!  The  consciousness 
of  their  obligations  and  responsibilities 
clothed  them  as  with  a  uniform.  Aman 
da  Gedge  carried  her  tall,  spare  form 
with  a  precision  suited  to  the  parade- 
ground;  she  held  her  head,  her  mother 
used  to  tell  her,  like  a  soldier — "which 
is  only  right/'  said  Mrs.  Gedge,  "for 
you  are  a  soldier's  daughter,  and  you  are 
7 


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in  the  Government!"  Mrs.  Gedge  had 
been  known  to  put  an  end  to  a  political 
discussion,  begun  around  the  stove  while 
she  was  distributing  the  mail,  on  the 
ground  that  she  was  "connected  with 
the  administration,  and  it  was  not 
right  for  her  to  hear  it  criticized;  so,  if 
they  pleased,  they  could  step  outside 
and  talk  about  it."  The  Secretary  of 
State  could  have  no  better  excuse  for 
refusing  to  discuss  the  President's  mes 
sage! 

But  that  time  of  arrogance  and  the 
sense  of  power  was  eight  years  ago, 
when  Mrs.  Gedge,  able  to  sort  the  letters 
herself  and  hand  them  out  of  the  de 
livery  window,  could  overhear  com 
ments  upon  the  weather,  or  the  church, 
or,  once  in  four  years,  the  politics  of 
the  nation.  Now  that  pleasant  time 
was  over;  all  day  long  she  sat  behind 
the  partition,  her  crutches  beside  her, 
her  knitting  in  her  crippled  old  hands, 
and  the  sorting  of  the  mail  was  left  to 
8 


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the  milder  and  more  indulgent  Amanda, 
who  never  dreamed  of  telling  people 
what  they  must  or  must  not  talk  about. 
"I  tell  'Mandy  she's  my  partner,"  Mrs. 
Gedge used  to  say,  jocosely;  "since  she's 
grown  up  I  trust  the  office  to  her  quite 
considerable. "  In  point  of  fact,  she 
entrusted  it  entirely  to  her  faded,  gentle 
daughter,  who  was  a  trifle  deaf,  and  so 
absorbed  by  her  duties  that  she  did  not 
notice  the  discussions  carried  on  in  the 
open  space  about  the  stove,  which  space, 
even  Mrs.  Gedge  admitted,  belonged  to 
the  Public.  Besides,  although  Amanda 
appreciated  her  own  dignity,  her  deepest 
thought  was  for  her  mother,  and  she 
was  not  so  apt  to  reflect  upon  what  was 
due  to  her  official  personality  as  to 
wonder  whether  Mrs.  Gedge's  rheuma 
tism  was  better,  or  whether  they  could 
afford  to  try  a  bottle  of  some  new  kind 
of  medicine.  Still,  Amanda  knew  her 
importance  as  a  representative  of  the 
United  States  government. 
9 


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It  was  all  pathetically  genuine.  The 
summer  people,  who  found  the  Gedges 
very  slow  and  provoking,  had  no  idea 
of  the  reality  behind  the  little  pom 
posities.  Amanda's  bosom  had  thrilled 
with  patriotism,  when,  twenty-four  years 
before,  her  father  had  enlisted;  it  still 
thrilled  at  any  mention  of  her  country. 
Every  evening  when  she  let  fall  the 
halyards  and  took  the  flag  in,  she  did  it 
with  a  mental  salute;  every  morning 
when  she  ran  the  colors  up  she  held  her 
head  high  with  pride.  It  was  not 
empty  pride;  Amanda  had  made  sacri 
fices  for  that  flag  that  streamed  out 
gaily  in  the  sunshine  or  clung  to  the  pole 
in  rain  and  mist;  not  only  her  father, 
but  her  lover,  William  Boyce,  had  died 
for  it.  Twenty-five  years  ago  Amanda 
had  not  been  angular  and  dried  up;  a 
boy,  in  those  dewy  days,  had  loved  her 
youth  and  her  gentle  brown  eyes— 
"eyes  like  my  setter's,"  the  boy  had 
said,  knowing  no  higher  comparison. 

10 


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When  he  went  away  to  fight  for  his 
country,  he  took  with  him  her  promise 
to  be  faithful  to  him  forever — just  as 
his  setter  would  be  faithful,  too.  "  For 
ever"  was  not  a  very  long  time;  he 
came  home  again  in  a  year,  so  sick, 
poor  fellow,  that  he  did  not  care  much 
for  the  faithfulness  that  was  awaiting 
him;  he  hardly  noticed  Amanda,  who 
nursed  him  day  and  night,  or  Ponto, 
who  lapped  his  hot  hand  whenever  it 
fell  listlessly  at  his  side.  Then  he  died ; 
—and  Amanda,  tearless,  saluted  the 
flag! 

Her  father  had  never  come  home; 
she  did  not  even  know  where  his  grave 
was,  but  Willie's  was  over  on  the  hill. 
It  seemed  to  belong  to  Amanda,  for 
the  young  man's  family — and  Ponto— 
moved  away  from  Purham,  and  left 
the  low  green  mound  to  her.  More 
than  that,  the  poem  on  the  slate  head 
stone  had  been  the  one  literary  achieve 
ment  of  Mrs.  Gedge's  life — she  had  com- 
ii 


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posed  it,  but  it  only.  Official  life,  she 
had  been  heard  to  complain,  left  her 
no  time  for  writing  poetry.  She  also 
laid  to  official  life  the  charge  that  she 
was  severe  in  telling  people  not  to  talk 
politics  in  the  post-office.  "In  my 
position,  you  have  your  responsibili 
ties,"  said  Mrs.  Gedge,  "and  maybe 
you  do  get  a  mite  harsh."  Yet  Mrs. 
Gedge' s  harshness  was  only  on  the  sur 
face;  more  than  once  she  had  illus 
trated  the  paternal  side  of  government 
by  small  indulgences,  such  as  delaying 
the  mail-bag  for  a  letter  which  she  knew 
was  being  written  by  a  slow  and 
anxious  correspondent.  It  was  quite  an 
ordinary  thing  for  her  to  give  a  postal 
to  a  customer  who  had  chanced  to 
leave  his  purse  at  home,  and  when  he 
remembered  his  penny  debt  she  had  been 
known  to  refuse  to  recognize  his  paltry 
obligation,  although  the  deficiencies 
caused  by  such  governmental  generosity 
gave  Amanda  many  arithmetical  diffi- 

12 


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culties,  and  lessened  their  already  slen 
der  income.  Neither  Mrs.  Gedge  nor 
Amanda  really  minded  that;  their  in 
convenience  was  noblesse  oblige;  to  hold 
back  the  wheels  of  government  and  to 
be  mulcted  of  a  penny  now  and  then, 
was  the  incident  of  responsibility.  Yet 
such  is  the  ingratitude  of  human  nature 
that  there  had  been  more  than  one 
irritated  protest  heard  in  the  open 
space  before  the  delivery  window.  To 
be  sure,  such  protests  had  always  come 
from  the  summer  residents,  "and," 
said  Mrs.  Gedge,  comforting  her  daugh 
ter,  whose  face  was  flushed  and  whose 
eyes  glittered  with  tears,  "you  really 
can't  expect  anything  else  of  such  peo 
ple,  Amanda!" 

"Well,  I  must  say  it  was  unreason 
able,"  Amanda  agreed.  "Mr.  Hamil 
ton  knows  that  we  have  to  consider  the 
Public,  but  he  says  he's  the  Public — and 
only  here  six  weeks  in  the  summer!  I 
said,  said  I :  '  Mr.  Hamilton,  Mrs,  Dace 


PARTNERS 


wanted  to  send  off  some  collars  she'd 
been  making  for  her  daughter,  and  I 
knew  she  only  had  a  stitch  to  put  in 
them.  If  I'd  sent  the  mail-bag  down 
by  the  morning  stage  those  collars 
wouldn't  have  been  in  it,  and  Mary 
Dace  wouldn't  have  got  them  in  time  for 
Sunday.  So  I  kept  back  the  bag,  and 
coaxed  Oily  to  take  it  down  on  the 
evening  stage/  Well,  Mr.  Hamilton 
was  just  as  unreasonable!" 

"You  shouldn't  argue  with  people 
like  that,  'Mandy.  The  Government  is 
the  only  thing  you've  got  to  consider. 
If  Mr.  Hamilton  don't  like  the  way  the 
Government  serves  him — well,  let  him 
carry  his  letters  himself!" 

"  It  was  nothing  but  a  paper  that  was 
delayed,  anyhow,"  Amanda  explained 
for  the  third  time. 

Mrs.  Gedge  pulled  her  little  brown 

knitted    shawl    around    her    shoulders. 

"Of  course  we  do  sell  more  stamps  when 

they  are  here — the  summer  people;  but 

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they  are  so  fussy  and  overbearing,  even 
to  us,  that  I  don't  think  they  are  worth 
the  money  they  bring  in.  I  declare,  I 
believe  they  think  Purham  belongs  to 
them!" 

But  a  sense  of  importance  will  sus 
tain  one  under  small  irritations,  and  the 
peaceful  life  in  the  little  house  shad 
owed  by  the  blowing  flag  and  the  big 
elms,  was  not  really  disturbed.  All  that 
summer,  which  was  tremulous  with  the 
excitement  of  a  great  campaign,  Mrs. 
Gedge  sat  knitting  behind  the  pigeon 
holes,  watching  the  Public  come  and 
go  along  the  dusty  road,  or  the  stage 
tugging  up  from  the  bridge  across  the 
brook,  and  pausing  at  the  Public's  door 
to  leave  the  mail-bag.  The  sitting- 
room,  on  the  other  side  of  the  entry  was 
really  a  pleasanter  place  than  the  office, 
but  the  old  postmistress,  although  she 
was  willing  to  say,  (as  a  joke,)  that 
Amanda  was  her  "partner,"  was  not 
willing  to  be  anything  but  the  head  of 
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the  firm;  so  day  in  and  day  out  she  sat 
behind  the  pigeonholes  and  permitted 
her  daughter  to  do  all  the  work.  But 
after  the  last  mail  was  distributed  she 
was  glad  to  relax  into  domesticity. 

In  the  sitting-room  they  were,  Mrs. 
Gedge  said,  just  like  anybody  else; 
(probably  she  never  really  believed  this, 
but  she  said  it).  This  room  had  no 
flavor  of  a  Purham  parlor;  it  had  just 
plain  comfort.  The  south  window  was 
full  of  Amanda's  geraniums,  flourishing 
so  finely  that  the  vigorous  leaves  made 
the  room  faintly  fragrant.  The  base- 
burner  was  bright  with  polish  and  nickel 
trimmings,  and  the  worn  " two-ply"  in 
the  center  of  the  pumpkin-yellow  floor 
gave  a  hint  of  comfortable  color  under 
foot.  On  the  wall,  above  a  little  table 
draped  with  a  crazy-patchwork  cover, 
was  a  book-rack  holding  the  Bible  and 
Pilgrim's  Progress  and  one  or  two  such 
faithful  friends;  but  scarcity  of  books 
left  more  room  for  the  few  ornaments 


PARTNERS 


that  Mrs.  Gedge  loved,  and  Amanda 
had  revered  ever  since  her  childhood :  a 
whale's  tooth,  a  yellowing  bunch  of  wax 
grapes,  and  two  china  vases ;  on  the  top 
shelf  was  a  Rogers  group,  presented  by 
one  of  the  summer  people  who  had  been 
clearing  her  "cottage"  out,  and  getting 
rid  of  what  she  called  " horrors."  But 
the  most  precious  thing  in  the  sitting- 
room — at  any  rate  to  Amanda — was  a 
chromo  of  General  Grant. 

"  I  remember  the  night  father  brought 
that  picture  home,"  Amanda  used  to 
say ;  ' '  you  didn't  see  it  till  supper-time ; 
you  were  up-stairs."  Amanda's  brown 
eyes  grew  vague  with  faithful  memory. 
"It  was  the  night  before  father  went 
away,"  she  said. 

"Yes,"  Mrs.  Gedge  assented;  "I  was 
up-stairs  sitting  on  the  cowhide  trunk, 
crying.  That's  why  I  was  late  for  sup 
per.  You  know  I  wanted  your  father 
to  take  his  things  in  your  grandfather 
Beed's  cowhide  trunk,  and  he  said  he 
17 


PARTNERS 


couldn't  take  a  trunk  to  the  war.  He 
said  it  wasn't  customary.  My,  how  I 
cried  when  he  said  that!  It  seemed  so 
poor  not  to  have  a  trunk,  and  I  didn't 
give  up  asking  him  to  take  it  until  the 
last  minute.  He  said,  said  he,  'it  would 
be  fine  to  have  a  trunk,  in  a  fight;  I 
could  stop  the  whole  shootin'  match, 
while  I  unpacked  it,  and  got  out  a 
handkerchief  if  I  was  het  up/ — Your 
father  always  would  have  his  joke!  But 
it  wa'n't  no  joke  to  me,  seeing  him  go 
without  a  trunk!  You  were  too  young 
—only  eighteen — to  feel  it  as  I  did. 
You  didn't  cry." 

"No,  I  didn't  cry  in  those  days," 
Amanda  said,  meekly.  "I  didn't  seem 
to  have  time  to  cry.  I  just  followed 
father  round  and  round,  and  I  watched 
him  hang  General  Grant.  But  you 
were  always  a  pretty  crier,  mother." 

"Willie  Boyce  was  in  that  evening," 
Mrs.  Gedge  went  on.  "I  can  see  him 
to  this  day!  He  wanted  you  to  see 
18 


PARTNERS 


his  uniform.  He  wasn't  pretty,  Willie 
wasn't,  but  that  never  seemed  to  make 
any  difference  to  you.  Poor  Willie! 
Well,  he  had  a  handsome  casket;  I 
never  knew  where  his  folks  got  the 
money  to  pay  for  it;  but  it  must  have 
been  a  comfort  to  him  if  he  was  aware 
of  it.  Many's  the  time  I've  wondered 
whether  he  knows  that  I  wrote  the 
poem  on  his  tombstone?  But  the  Bible 
don't  say  whether  folks  is  aware  or 
not." 

The  mention  of  Willie  Boyce  turned 
Amanda  silent.  She  said  she  must  go 
into  the  office  for  a  minute,  and  left  her 
mother  wondering  why  the  child  never 
would  talk  about  her  beau.  "It's  all 
right  to  be  faithful  forever, "  Mrs.Gedge 
reflected, "but  you  needn't  grieve  for 
ever.  T'ain't  sense." 


CHAPTER  II 

BY  October  of  that  year  even  Pur- 
ham  had  stirred  in  its  satisfied  in 
difference,  and  was  hearing  the  voice  of 
the  nation  instructing  and  suggesting 
and  contradicting  itself.  The  voting 
population  listened  with  stolid  amuse 
ment  to  the  men  who  came  to  tell 
them  that  their  party  had  outlived  its 
usefulness,  and  to  entreat  them  to 
"save  the  country/*  In  all  these  years 
Purham  had  never  been  so  near  holding 
political  opinions.  It  was  really  very 
interesting.  Even  Mrs.  Gedge  said  that 
if  they  were  true — the  things  that  were 
said  about  the  party  in  power — she 
hoped  they  would  be  turned  out;  but 
she  regretted  this  indiscretion  after 
ward. 

20 


PARTNERS 


''It  isn't  for  us  to  express  an  opinion, 
child,"  she  told  Amanda;  "though,  of 
course,  they  are  all  anxious  to  know 
what  we  think.'* 

Amanda  made  some  vague  reply.  She 
was  less  interested  than  usual  in  her 
own  importance.  These  fall  days 
brought  the  anniversary  of  Willie  Boyce's 
death,  and  her  mind  kept  wandering  to 
that  mound  over  on  the  hillside.  She 
remembered,  with  pitiful  love,  his  weary 
indifference  to  her  in  the  weeks  that  he 
lay  dying.  "  Willie  was  sick,"  she  said 
to  herself;  "he  didn't  even  notice 
Ponto  licking  his  hand — poor  old  Ponto ! 
How  he  grieved  for  Willie."  Neither 
she  nor  Ponto  had  been  hurt  at  Willie's 
indifference;  the  two  faithful  souls  had 
only  loved  the  boy  the  more,  because  of 
the  suffering  that  had  blotted  out  his 
love  for  them.  But  no  doubt  in  these 
still  October  days  her  thought  of  Willie 
made  her  more  abstracted,  and  so  less 
careful  than  usual  about  the  letters; 

21 


PARTNERS 


at  the  mid-day  distribution  she  dropped 
one  on  the  floor,  and  did  not  notice  it 
until  evening.  Then  she  put  a  shawl 
over  her  head  and  ran  across  to  Mr. 
Goodrich's  with  it. 

"It's  lucky  it  wasn't  for  that  Hamil 
ton  man,"  Mrs.  Gedge  said,  with  a 
contemptuous  chuckle;  "he'd  have 
made  a  fuss  about  it ;  I  believe  he  thinks 
he  owns  the  place!" 

As  for  Silas  Goodrich,  anything  so  im 
portant  as  the  arrival  of  a  letter  made 
the  delay  of  an  hour  or  a  day  a  very 
small  matter;  it  had  come,  and  that 
was  all  he  cared  about!  He  never 
dreamed  of  finding  fault. 

The  next  day  was  the  anniversary  of 
Willie's  death,  and  in  the  afternoon 
Amanda  went  up  to  the  graveyard  with 
a  wreath  of  immortelles,  which  she  had 
dyed  pink  and  blue  and  vivid  green. 
She  propped  it  against  the  slate  head 
stone,  then  knelt  down  and  with  her 
handkerchief  wiped  the  piece  of  glass 

22 


PARTNERS 


which  so  many  years  ago,  had  been  set 
into  the  slate  to  cover  a  tintype  of  a  con 
sumptive  young  man  in  a  soldier's  uni 
form.  Amanda  looked  at  the  picture 
long  and  wistfully.  Some  day,  when 
she  had  saved  the  money,  she  was  going 
to  have  a  crayon  copy  made  of  this  tin 
type.  Ten  dollars  is  not  a  large  sum  to 
save;  indeed,  it  had  several  times 
been  reached,  but  just  as  the  last  dol 
lar  or  dime  was  added  to  the  fund 
there  was  always  some  call  for  it.  Her 
mother  needed  a  wheeled  chair,  or  a  new 
cooking-stove  must  be  bought,  or  the  re- 
shingling  of  the  roof  was  absolutely 
necessary;  so  the  sitting-room  was  still 
without  a  crayon. 

Amanda  picked  away  some  dead 
myrtle  leaves  and  scraped  a  flake  of 
lichen  from  the  stone.  She  knew  the 
inscription  by  heart,  but  she  always 
read  it  over  with  unfailing  pride  for 
her  mother  as  well  as  tenderness  for 
Willie. 

23 


PARTNERS 


" William  P.  Boyce,"  it  ran,  "died 
for  his  country;"  then  the  date,  followed 
by  the  verse  which  Mrs.  Gedge  had 
composed : 

Oh,  traveler,  whoever  you  may  be, 

Take  warning  and  advice  by  he 

Who  lies  beneath  this  tomb. 

He  went  to  war  and  died, 

And  now  in  paradise  is  glorified. 

Mourned  by  his  friends. 

"Mourned  by  his  friends,"  Amanda 
repeated;  "yes,  you'll  always  be 
mourned,  Willie."  Then  she  stooped 
and  kissed  his  name. 

She  was  very  silent  that  evening,  and 
her  mother  was  full  of  small  devices  to 
cheer  her.  She  told  her  how  Mr.  Ham 
ilton's  John  had  come  down  to  see 
whether  a  letter  he  expected  in  the  noon 
mail  might  not  have  been  overlooked. 

"He  said  that  Mr.  Hamilton  expected 

it  yesterday.     I  said,   said  I,   'No,  of 

course  it  hadn't  been  overlooked.'    Such 

a  time  about  a  letter!   Well,  he's  gone, 

24 


c  > 

13  Z 

"i 

r  z 


PARTNERS 


anyway,  Mr.  Hamilton  has.  I  wonder," 
she  ended,  satirically,  "that  he  didn't 
stay  over  until  to-morrow  to  get  his 
letter." 

Mrs.  Gedge  was  ready  to  say  any 
thing  if  only  she  could  cheer  'Mandy  up 
a  little.  ("My  goodness,  and  her  beau 
dead,  twenty-five  years!"  she  thought 
to  herself.) 

"Yes,"  she  proceeded,  "'pears  he 
got  a  telegram;  I  saw  him  driving  off 
afterward  like  a  crazy  man.  Those 
summer  people  have  no  sort  of  con 
sideration  for  their  beasts;  he  made  his 
horses  fly!" 

Amanda  looked  uneasy.  "I  don't 
think  I  could  have  missed  his  letter,  but 
I  guess  I'll  just  run  in  and  give  a  look 
into  the  bag.  Don't  you  remember  that 
time  Mrs.  Ainn's  letter  stuck  in  the  bag?" 

She  took  a  lamp,  shielding  its  clear 

flame  with  her  hand  as  she  walked  across 

the  drafty  entry  into  the  office.     The 

mail-bag,  lean  and  empty,  hung  between 

25 


PARTNERS 


two  chairs,  awaiting  the  morning  letters. 
Amanda  put  her  hand  into  it  and 
felt  all  around.  "Of  course  there's  no 
letter/*  she  said  to  herself,  indignantly. 
"It's  just  as  mother  says,  they  do  fuss 
so!"  She  stopped 'to  see  that  the  fire 
was  quite  out  in  the  stove,  then,  with 
sudden  boldness,  opened  one  of  the 
candy  jars  and  abstracted  two  gum- 
drops.  "There!  I  guess  mother  and  me 
can  have  some;  they're  getting  stale." 

Afterwards,  looking  back  upon  it,  that 
evening  seemed  to  Amanda  Gedge  won 
derfully  pleasant.  The  end  of  almost 
any  phase  of  human  experience  seems 
pleasant  when  one  looks  back  upon  it. 
Amanda  set  the  table,  and  made  the 
toast,  and  got  out  a  tumbler  of  currant 
jelly  as  a  treat.  When  the  dishes  were 
washed  they  sat  down  by  the  stove, 
and  while  Amanda  mended  her  stock 
ings,  Mrs.  Gedge  talked.  These  two 
quiet  women  found  life  very  interesting. 
First,  of  course,  their  own  responsi- 
26 


PARTNERS 


bilities  suggested  conversation.  Then 
they  had  all  their  past  to  talk  about ;  it 
had  had  its  sorrows — little  Charles, 
Amanda's  twin,  who  died  when  he  was 
ten  years  old;  Mr.  Gedge,  who,  making 
his  joke,  went  to  the  war  without  a 
trunk,  and  whose  grave,  somewhere  in 
the  South,  was  marked  " Unknown"; 
Willie  Boyce — though  it  was  only  Mrs. 
Gedge  who  talked  of  Willie.  They  could 
speak,  too,  of  their  happiness  in  not 
being  obliged  to  draw  a  pension.  "  Gov 
ernment  gave  us  our  position,  so  we 
are  independent,"  said  Amanda.  Mrs. 
Gedge  acquiesced,  adding  that  a  pension 
would  make  her  feel  like  a  beggar,  any 
way,  but  not  needing  it,  being  in  the 
Government,  it  would  make  her  feel  like 
a  thief!  Then  they  could  talk  of  the 
geraniums;  their  looks  as  compared  to 
last  year,  or  the  year  before,  or  many 
years  before;  or  the  frost;  or  how  long 
the  tub  of  butter  was  going  to  last.  Yes, 
life  was  very  interesting. 
27 


PARTNERS 


The  next  morning  it  rained,  and  was 
too  damp  for  Mrs.  Gedge  to  leave  the 
sitting-room  stove,  so  she  settled  herself 
by  the  window  for  a  long  day's  knitting. 
The  stage  came  swinging  and  creaking 
down  the  hill,  and  stood  in  front  of  the 
post -office  waiting  for  the  mail-bag,  the 
four  horses  steaming  in  the  rain.  Mrs. 
Gedge  saw  the  young,  red-faced  driver 
knock  on  the  off- wheel  with  the  handle 
of  his  whip,  and  heard  him  call  out: 
1 '  Morning,  'Mandy !' '  But  Amanda  did 
not  appear.  "My!  she  ain't  fast,"  the 
old  postmistress  said,  impatiently.  But 
the  next  minute  her  daughter  hurried 
out  with  the  still  lean  bag  in  her  arms, 
and  Oily  Clough  thrust  it  under  his  feet 
on  the  toeboard.  Then  he  flourished  his 
whip  and  went  jolting  slowly  down  to 
the  bridge  to  disappear  behind  the  hill. 
Mrs.  Gedge  could  not  imagine  why 
Amanda  should  stand  there  bareheaded 
looking  after  him,  apparently  forgetful 
of  the  rain.  She  scratched  upon  the 
28 


PARTNERS 


window-pane  with  her  knitting-needles 
to  attract  her  daughter's  attention,  but 
Amanda  did  not  seem  to  hear  her; 
she  turned  slowly  and  went  back  into 
the  office.  It  was  ten  minutes  later 
before  she  came  into  the  sitting-room. 

"What  made  you  so  slow,  child?"  de 
manded  Mrs.  Gedge.  Mrs.  Gedge  kept 
young  by  means  of  an  unflagging  curios 
ity  about  small  happenings. 

"Mother,"  said  Amanda,  "look  at 
that!' '  She  held  up  a  letter  as  she  spoke. 

Mrs.  Gedge  stretched  out  her  hand 
for  it  eagerly,  and  holding  it  at  arm's- 
length,  read  the  address:  "' Arthur 
Hamilton,  Esq.,  Purham,  Vermont.' 
Well,  child — but  how  did  it  come  this 
time  of  day?  Oh,  it  was  in  the  bag 
yesterday,  after  all?" 

Amanda  was  quite  pale;  she  pushed 
back  a  lock  of  hair  from  her  high,  bleak 
forehead.  "That's  the  letter  he  was  in 
quiring  after!  —  and  it's  back-stamped 
day  before  yesterday,  so  he'll  know 
29 


PARTNERS 


when  it  came.  It  got  shoved  into  one 
of  the  low  call  boxes.  My  goodness!19 
This  burst  of  excitement  really  alarmed 
Mrs.  Gedge.  "Why,  child,  you  needn't 
be  so  put  out.  He  ain't  in  town.  Didn't 
I  tell  you  he  went  away  yesterday?  I 
don't  know  as  I'd  put  it  into  his  box, 
anyhow.  If  he  gets  it  he'll  know  it  was 
delayed,  and  then  he'll  fuss.  I  don't  be 
lieve  I'd  give  it  to  him,  'Mandy." 

"Oh,  mother,  I  don't  hardly  think 
that  would  do,"  Amanda  said,  shocked. 

"Well,  perhaps  it  wouldn't,"  Mrs. 
Gedge  admitted,  reluctantly.  ' *  Course, 
I  wouldn't  think  of  such  a  thing  if  it  was 
anybody  else.  But  that  man!  He's 
gone  now,  anyhow,  and  probably  he's 
found  out  what  was  in  the  letter  by  this 
time,  so  he  hasn't  any  need  of  it;  and 
you  know  he's  had  no  experience  in  a 
post-office;  he  don't  understand  how  a 
mistake  could  be  made. — Well,  I  don't 
see  myself,  'Mandy,  how  could  you  get 
that  letter  into  the  wrong  hole!"  Mrs. 
30 


PARTNERS 


Gedge  frowned  a  little.  ' '  Teh !' '  she  said. 
It  was  all  very  well  to  call  Amanda 
her  "partner,"  just  in  fun — but  really! 
However,  there  was  no  use  scolding  the 
girl.  "There,  it  isn't  any  matter,  child ; 
put  it  with  his  night  mail." 

"No;  I  must  take  it  up  to  his  house 
now,"  said  Amanda.  "I'll  have  to 
bundle  you  up  and  wheel  you  into  the 
office.  It  '11  take  me  an  hour  to  go  and 
come,  and  the  office  can't  be  closed  all 
that  time." 

Mrs.  Gedge  did  not  half  like  it,  she 
said ;  it  was  not  right  for  the  post-office 
to  wait  on  Mr.  Hamilton  by  carrying 
him  his  letters;  it  was  trouble  enough 
to  sort  them  out !  Nevertheless  she  per 
mitted  Amanda  to  take  her  across  the 
hall  and  place  her  on  the  official  side  of 
the  pigeonholes  within  reach  of  the 
stamp-drawer  and  the  letter-scales.  If 
anybody  wanted  gum-drops  or  writing- 
paper  they  would  have  to  help  them 
selves,  and  bring  her  the  change. 


PARTNERS 


When  Amanda  started  up  the  hill 
with  Mr.  Hamilton's  letter,  her  large 
freckled  face  was  pale,  and  her  anxious 
eyes  looked  out  from  under  a  forehead 
that  was  creased  with  worry.  She  was 
so  preoccupied  that  she  forgot  to  raise 
her  umbrella — which  did  not  matter 
much  because  the  rain  could  not  greatly 
increase  the  shabbiness  of  her  hat. 

It  had  rained  since  before  dawn,  and 
the  sycamores  and  lindens  had  given 
up  the  few  yellow  leaves  to  which  they 
had  clung  since  the  last  frost;  the 
ground  was  covered  with  them,  and  the 
air  was  heavy  with  their  dank  aromatic 
scent.  The  wheel  ruts  were  full  of 
running  yellow  water.  Amanda  picked 
her  way  carefully,  but  her  Congress 
gaiters  were  soaked  above  her  over 
shoes,  and  even  the  white  stockings  on 
her  lean  ankles  were  splashed.  She  said 
to  herself  that  she  was  glad  it  had  not 
rained  yesterday—  "tho'  I'd  have  gone 
up  to  Willie,  anyhow,"  she  said,  simply. 
32 


PARTNERS 


Then  she  thought  of  her  wreath  of  im 
mortelles,  and  hoped  the  colors  wouldn't 
' '  run . ' '  The  glass  over  the  tintype  in  the 
headstone  must  be  so  spattered  by  this 
pouring  rain  that  Willie,  in  his  uniform, 
could  not  be  seen.  She  would  be  glad 
when  she  could  have  the  crayon  made. 
She  knew  just  where  it  was  going  to 
hang  in  the  sitting-room — right  opposite 
General  Grant;  she  had  a  plan  about 
a  cross  of  purple  immortelles  to  place 
above  it.  To  think  thus  of  Willie  began 
to  smooth  the  worry  out  of  her  face. 

By  the  time  Mr.  Hamilton's  house  was 
in  sight,  she  had  gone  through  a  calcula 
tion  as  to  how  long  it  would  take  her, 
putting  aside  ten  cents  a  week,  to  save 
up  the  three  dollars  still  lacking.  Seven 
months  and  two  weeks!  Well,  to  be  on 
the  safe  side,  say  eight  months.  Amanda 
smiled,  and  forgot  her  apprehensions. 
At  Mr.  Hamilton's  door,  a  little  out  of 
breath  and  honestly  apologetic,  she  was 
no  longer  worried.  "John,"  she  said  to 
33 


PARTNERS 


the  man  who  answered  her  ring,  "this 
letter  was  overlooked.  I'm  real  sorry." 

11  Well,  now!"  said  John,  amiably. 
"When  did  it  come?  Yes,  sir!  it's  that 
Washington  letter.  Why,  Miss  Gedge, 
he  was  lookin'  for  it  two  days  ago.  They 
had  to  telegraph  him  to  come  on. 
Lord!  he  kicked  like  a  steer  about  it. 
'Postal  delays,'  says  he.  Obliged  to 
you  for  bringin'  it,  miss." 

Amanda  did  not  reply;  she  was 
gathering  her  skirts  up  under  her  water 
proof  again,  and  shaking  open  her  um 
brella. 

"You  might  'a'  saved  yourself  the 
trouble  of  climbing  the  hill,"  John  ru 
minated;  "he's  fetched  up  in  Wash 
ington  by  this  time;  so  the  letter  ain't 
needed,  as  you  might  say." 

Amanda  nodded,  and  went  plodding 
down  the  driveway,  her  tall  body  lean 
ing  against  the  wind  that  twisted  the 
old  rubber  waterproof  around  her  ankles 
and  beat  her  umbrella  over  side-wise; 

34 


PARTNERS 


the  barege  veil  hung  wet  and  straight 
across  one  shoulder.  The  cold  misgiv 
ing  had  come  back:  "Postal  delays;'* 
and  Mr.  Hamilton  was  in  Washington! 
Suppose  he  should  find  fault? — suppose 
the  Government  should  hear  about  the 
"delay"?  Of  course  their  long  and 
friendly  relations  with  the  Post-office 
would  make  an  explanation  simple 
enough ;  yet  it  was  not  pleasant  to  think 
that  Mr.  Hamilton  might  speak  of  them 
unkindly  to  some  one  in  the  Depart 
ment.  She  wished  the  President  could 
know  what  good  Republicans  they  were. 
She  thought  uneasily  of  that  remark 
of  her  mother's  about  "turning  the 
party  out " ;  it  wasn't  wise  for  people  in 
office  to  say  a  thing  like  that.  It  might 
be  repeated.  And  dear  knows,  she  and 
her  mother  were  loyal!  She  had  never 
begrudged  her  father  and  Willie  Boyce  to 
her  country;  she  wished,  if  Mr.  Hamil 
ton  did  say  anything  about  the  Purham 
post-office,  he  would  speak  of  the  two 
35 


PARTNERS 


soldiers.  But  of  course  he  wouldn't. 
Perhaps  he  didn't  even  know  of  them. 
The  wind  suddenly  twisted  her  um 
brella,  and  her  face  was  wet  with 
rain. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHEN  Amanda  had  put  on  dry 
clothing  she  hurried  into  the 
office,  for  there  was  much  to  do  before 
the  arrival  of  the  noon  stage.  What  with 
her  work,  and  listening  to  Mrs.  Gedge's 
minute  account  of  all  that  had  tran 
spired  in  her  absence,  she  had  no  time 
before  the  mail  came  to  tell  her  mother 
of  her  anxieties.  She  listened  with  close 
attention  to  every  word  of  the  small 
happenings:  Sally  Goodrich  had  come 
in  for  two  stamps,  and  her  five-cent  piece 
had  rolled  down  in  that  crack  by  the 
stove;  but  Mrs.  Gedge  had  said,  " Never 
mind,  Sally,  you  can  have  them  just  as 
well";  for  it  was  raining,  as  Amanda 
knew,  and  Sally  Goodrich  at  her  age- 
she  was  sixty-one,  if  she  was  a  day— 
4  37 


PARTNERS 


could  not  go  back  in  the  rain  just  for 
four  cents;  besides,  the  money  was 
really  in  the  post-office,  and  if  the  floor 
should  ever  be  raised  they  would  get 
it.  Mrs.  Gedge,  having  been  silent  for 
an  hour,  talked  in  a  steady,  cheerful 
stream,  broken  only  by  Amanda's  lit 
tle  interjections  of  surprise  and  in 
terest. 

But  after  dinner,  which  the  noon  mail 
made  as  late  as  one  o'clock,  Amanda 
could  not  help  saying  that  she  wished 
that  letter  had  belonged  to  anybody 
on  earth  but  Mr.  Hamilton ! 

"Oh,  you  take  it  too  much  to 
heart,  child,"  Mrs.  Gedge  reassured  her. 
"Why,  'Mandy,  he's  only  a  summer 
person;  he's  gone  away  now,  and  we 
won't  see  or  hear  of  him  till  next  sum 
mer.  I  don't  know  why  he  stayed  so 
late  this  year,  anyhow!" 

"Well,  maybe  we  wont,"  said  Aman 
da,  doubtfully;  "but  John  seemed  to 
think  he  was  dreadfully  put  out  about 
38 


PARTNERS 


it.  He  said  he  kicked.  I  suppose  he 
meant  he  stamped  his  foot/1 

"What  if  he  did?  It  only  shows  he's 
a  bad-tempered  man,  that's  all!" 

' '  Yes ;  but  —  he's  in  Washington, 
mother." 

Mrs.  Gedge  did  not  see  the  connec 
tion  for  a  moment,  then  suddenly  she 
looked  concerned.  "Well,  now,  Aman 
da,  how  could  you  overlook  that  letter? 
Dear  me,  child,  I  don't  see  how  you 
did  it!  Why,  if  he's  in  Washington,  he 
might  say  something.  I  tell  you,  I 
wouldn't  like  that,  'Mandy!" 

Amanda  sighed.  "Neither  would  I. 
If  there  was  any  excuse — but  there 
isn't.  It  was — it  was  the  fifteenth  of 
October,  mother;  you  know?  the  day 
before  the — sixteenth.  And  I  was  sort 
of  dull.  Well,  I  suppose  I  couldn't 
write  that  to  Washington?" 

"Of  course  you  could!"  cried  Mrs. 
Gedge;  "and  if  he  should  say  anything, 
I'd  like  them  to  know  what  a  good  ex- 
39 


PARTNERS 


cuse  we  have."  But  though  she  spoke 
bravely  to  Amanda,  Mrs.  Gedge  did  not, 
in  the  bottom  of  her  heart,  feel  quite 
easy. 

As  the  afternoon  passed,  darkening 
into  rainy  dusk,  she  spoke  once  or  twice 
of  the  letter  they  might  have  to  write 
in  case  "that  Hamilton  man"  should 
make  trouble  for  them.  Suddenly,  just 
as  they  were  sitting  down  to  supper,  her 
face  lightened:  "'Mandy!  I'll  tell  you 
what  would  be  a  good  thing,  better  than 
waiting  till  the  trouble's  made,  to  tell 
them  about  Willie:  send  a  present, now!" 

11  To    Mr.    Hunter?"    said    Amanda. 

Mr.  Hunter  was  the  gentleman  whose 
rubber  stamp  signed  the  occasional  com 
munications  from  Washington,  and  to 
whom  they  submitted  their  quarterly 
accounts. 

"I  meant  the  President,"  said  Mrs. 

Gedge,  doubtfully;  "but  I  don't  know 

but  what  Mr.  Hunter  would  be  better. 

Then,  if  that  man  should  presume  to 

40 


PARTNERS 


say  anything,  Mr.  Hunter  would  know 
that  our  intentions  were  all  right." 

"Oh,  mother,  I  don't  know,"  Amanda 
demurred.  "Maybe  we'd  better  not  do 
anything?  Maybe  he  won't  complain." 

But  Mrs.  Gedge  was  positive.  "No; 
a  present  is  friendly,  and  he's  probably 
a  busy  man,  being  in  a  big  post-office; 
so  if  he  has  a  present  from  us,  it  will  be 
easier  for  him  to  keep  us  in  mind  as 
being  friendly." 

Amanda  pondered:  "  What  could  you 
send  him?" 

"Oh,  I've  thought  of  that!'9  said  Mrs. 
Gedge,  triumphantly.  "Oily  Clough 
can  get  his  friend  in  Boston  to  buy  an 
album — a  blue  velvet  album  like  Sally 
Goodrich 's,  with  those  steel  trimmings 
and  clasps." 

Even  the  hesitating  Amanda  was 
stirred  by  that;  then  her  face  fell: 
"Sally's  album  cost  nine  dollars  and 
ninety-five  cents!" 

Mrs.  Gedge  was  dismayed.  "Per- 
41 


PARTNERS 


haps  we  needn't  get  such  an  expensive 
one?" 

"No;  if  we  get  any,  it  ought  to 
be  a  handsome  one,"  Amanda  said; 
(of  course,  the  crayon  could  not  be 
ordered  this  year — that  was  settled!) 
"Well,  mother,"  she  said,  bravely,  "I'll 
run  into  the  office  after  supper  and  see 
what  money  we've  got  to  spare." 

Mrs.  Gedge's  fear  of  Mr.  Hamilton 
vanished;  the  album  would  nullify  any 
complaints  that  a  fussy  "summer  per 
son"  might  make! 

"Why,  child,"  she  said,  putting  down 
the  cup  she  had  just  raised  to  her 
lips—  "why,  'Mandy,  suppose  I  was  to 
write  a  poem,  and  send  it  with  the 
album?" 

Ever  since  Willie  Boyce  died,  Mrs. 
Gedge  had  meant  to  write  another  poem, 
but  there  had  been  no  occasion  great 
enough  to  inspire  her. 

"Well,  now,  that  is  a  good  idea," 
Amanda  answered,  proudly.  "It  would 
42 


PARTNERS 


be  real  nice  to  send  a  poem  with  the 
present/' 

And  for  the  rest  of  the  meal  Mrs. 
Gedge  tried  to  find  words  that  rhymed 
with  Hunter,  but  they  were  so  scarce, 
"and  not  real  sensible,"  she  said,  that 
she  turned  to  "album;"  but  although  it 
rhymed  well  enough  with  "dumb"  and 
"come;"  she  did  not  see  just  what 
words  she  could  get  in  in  front  of  'em. 
Amanda  tried  to  help  her,  but  her  heart 
was  not  in  it;  she  was  listening  to  the 
rain  and  thinking  of  the  tintype  under 
the  misty  glass. 

The  next  morning  the  matter  was  in 
trusted  to  Oily  Clough.  He  had  a 
friend  in  Boston, — "a  traveling  com 
mission  merchant,"  Oily  called  him— 
who  could  be  relied  upon  to  select  just 
what  was  wanted.  The  only  stipulation 
was  that  the  album  should  be  blue.  If 
the  commission  merchant  could  find  one 
that  had  two  flags  crossed  on  the  clasp, 
like  Sally's,  he  was  to  get  it,  even  if  it 
43 


PARTNERS 


cost  a  quarter  more.  He  was  to  try, 
however  to  find  one  just  as  good  as 
Sally's,  for  maybe  a  dollar  less.  Oily 
was  so  hopeful  that  his  friend  could 
economize  that  Mrs.  Gedge  checked  him: 

"You  don't  consider  money,  Oily, 
when  you're  getting  a  present  for  a 
friend." 

After  that  there  were  many  days  of 
expectation,  for  no  one  could  tell  when 
Olly's  friend  would  be  able  to  fill  the 
order.  In  Mrs.  Gedge's  mind  the  reason 
for  making  the  present,  had  faded  in  the 
excitement  of  the  present  itself.  It  had 
been  easier,  no  doubt,  to  forget  the 
reason,  because  Mr.  Hamilton  had  not 
come  back  to  Purham.  Indeed,  when, 
flushed  with  triumph,  on  the  Wednes 
day  following  the  first  Monday  in  No 
vember,  John  called  for  the  letters,  he 
told  Mrs.  Gedge  that  he  was  closing  the 
Hamilton  house  for  the  season;  if  any 
more  mail  came  for  the  family  it  was  to 
be  forwarded  to  Washington. 
44 


PARTNERS 


"We'll  be  there  this  winter,"  said 
John,  with  an  important  air,  "  though  of 
course  we  won't  get  to  work  before  the 
fourth  of  March." 

"  My  goodness!"  said  Amanda,  to  her 
self,  "I'm  thankful  we're  done  with  that 
Hamilton  man  until  next  summer!" 
She  really  breathed  more  freely,  for  ever 
since  John's  betrayal  of  his  master's 
temper  she  had  had  a  scared  feeling  that, 
although  the  season  was  over  and  all 
the  summer  people  scattered,  Mr.  Ham 
ilton  might,  for  some  inconceivable 
reason,  come  back  to  Purham  and  make 
a  scene.  "I'd  put  him  out  of  the  office 
with  my  own  hands,"  she  thought, 
"rather  than  have  him  worry  mother." 
But  now  that  Mr.  Hamilton  was  to 
be  in  Congress,  he  would  not  have 
time  to  make  trouble  for  Purham  peo 
ple.  Amanda  did  not  say  so,  but  she 
wished  they  had  not  ordered  the  album; 
it  was  an  unnecessary  expense. 

It  was  not  until  well  into  December 
45 


PARTNERS 


that  the  commission  merchant  attended 
to  Mrs.  Gedge's  commission.  Then  one 
day,  on  the  noon  stage,  the  album  came ! 
Oily  handed  in  the  mail-bag  at  the  same 
time,  but  no  one  could  think  of  the 
mail  until  the  package  from  Boston  had 
been  opened: — there  it  was!  bound  in 
rich,  bright  blue  plush,  very  soft  and 
deep,  and  with  beautiful  oxidized  clasps. 
"It's  handsome,  I  will  say!"  said  Oily, 
his  big  head  in  its  fur  cap  blocking  up 
the  delivery  window;  "my  friend  ain't 
one  for  cheap  goods."  Everyone  who 
came  for  his  or  her  mail,  was  called 
upon  to  praise  Olly's  friend's  judgment; 
the  delivery  of  letters  was  a  secondary 
consideration.  Indeed,  Purham  dis 
played  its  good  nature  as  well  as  its 
patience,  for  neither  Mrs.  Gedge  nor 
Amanda  confided  the  purpose  of  the 
album.  It  was  "a  gift,"  they  said; 
and  with  that,  Purham,  admiring  and 
inconvenienced  and  curious,  was  forced 
to  be  content.  It  was  strange  to  see 
46 


PARTNERS 


the  official  reticence  of  these  two  sim 
ple  women,  who,  so  far  as  their  own 
lives  were  concerned,  had  not  a  single 
secret.  Their  reserve  was  the  most 
striking  indication  of  their  pride  of  office. 

The  people  who  had  not  received 
any  mail  lingered  longest,  kicking  their 
steaming  boots  against  the  stove,  and 
waiting,  as  though  in  the  hope  that  a 
relenting  afterthought  on  the  part  of  the 
postmistress  might  create  a  letter.  But 
when  the  last  loiterer  went  tramping  out 
into  the  snow,  the  mother  and  daughter 
gave  themselves  up  to  the  contemplation 
of  their  treasure.  They  took  it  into  the 
sitting-room,  and  placed  it  with  almost 
reverent  care,  on  the  crazy  patchwork 
cover  of  the  table ;'  they  touched  the 
plush  to  see  how  soft  it  was,  and  studied 
the  pattern  on  the  clasps,  and  counted 
the  pages.  It  was  an  exciting,  indeed 
an  exhausting  afternoon. 

Sally  Goodrich  came  in  at  dusk  to 
have  a  look  at  the  album,  the  story  of 

47 


PARTNERS 


which  had  of  course,  reached  her  earlier 
in  the  day.  She  was  a  little  conde 
scending  at  first,  but  its  magnificence 
overpowered  her,  and  she  confessed  that 
that  it  was  far  handsomer  than  her 
own.  She  said  that  she  presumed  the 
person  it  was  for  would  be  real  pleased? 
But  the  mother  or  daughter  were  not 
flattered  into  giving  information.  They 
were  impatient  to  be  alone,  that  they 
might  compose  the  letter  which  was  to 
accompany  the  gift. 

They  did  not,  however,  get  at  it  until 
after  tea;  when  they  did,  Mrs.  Gedge 
could  not  easily  resign  the  idea  of  poetry. 
But  Hunter  is  not  a  poetical  name.  .  .  . 

Mrs.  Gedge  began: 

"This  album,  sir,  I  send  to  you — 
To  say  your  friends  are  always  true; 
We  Hope  you'll  use  it,  Mr.  Hunter, 
And — and 

"'Mandy!    can't  you  think  of  any 
thing  that  goes  with  Hunter?" 
48 


PARTNERS 


"I  cannot,"  Amanda  said,  despair 
ingly;  "try  not  putting  it  at  the  end." 

They  turned  Mr.  Hunter  round  and 
round  and  back  and  forth,  for  nearly 
an  hour,  before  Mrs.  Gedge  gave  up  and 
devoted  herself  to  the  sober  prose  of  a 
letter.  It  was  half  past  nine  when  it 
was  finished,  and  the  writer  went  to  bed 
weary,  happy,  and  appalled  at  the  late 
ness  of  the  hour.  Amanda,  before  she 
got  to  bed  herself,  tucked  the  album  up 
in  its  box  under  a  sheet  of  tissue-paper, 
as  tenderly  as  though  it  were  a  baby.  It 
lay  on  the  table  at  Mrs.  Gedge's  bedside, 
and  when  Amanda  rose  the  next  morn 
ing,  she  found  her  mother  awake  and 
anxious  for  a  look  at  it. 

"I  can't  wait  till  I  get  dressed,"  the 
old  postmistress  said,  her  eyes,  under 
the  full  ruffle  of  her  nightcap,  bright 
with  excited  pride. 

It  was  hard  to  part  with  the  beautiful 
thing,  but  it  had  to  go  on  the  noon  stage, 
and  the  letter,  full  of  respectful  assur- 

49 


PARTNERS 


ances  of  regard,  went  with  it.  How  the 
thoughts  of  the  contented  donors  fol 
lowed  each  step  of  its  journey!  Mrs. 
Gedge  was  concerned  about  the  weather ; 
she  said  that  she  hoped  the  snow 
wouldn't  drift  badly  on  the  hill-road; 
Amanda  would  remember  how  Olly's 
father's  stage  had  upset  on  the  hill- 
road  in  the  great  storm  twenty-two 
years  ago.  In  an  accident  like  that,  a 
package  could  easily  be  lost,  she  said, 
anxiously.  She  and  Amanda  calculated 
the  exact  moment  that  it  would  reach 
Washington,  and  the  earliest  date  when 
an  acknowledgment  could  be  looked  for. 
By  this  time — mid-December — Mrs. 
Gedge  had  quite  forgotten  Mr.  Hamil 
ton.  Her  life  had  too  many  pleasant 
and  interesting  things  in  it  to  allow  her 
to  think  about  a  bad-tempered  man, 
who  was  nothing  but  a  summer  person 
anyhow.  Amanda's  apprehensions  had 
vanished  too,  and  she  only  remembered 
them  when  she  thought  of  the  tintype 
50 


PARTNERS 


in  the  slate  headstone,  or  noticed  the 
vacant  spot  opposite  General  Grant. 
Then  she  had  a  little  pang  because 
propitiation  had  been  necessary.  Mrs. 
Gedge  would  not  admit  that  the  album 
had  been  propitiatory;  it  was  only  a 
gift  to  an  unknown  friend.  That  the 
friend's  acknowledgment  of  the  gift 
seemed  long  in  coming  was  a  little  dis 
appointing  although  it  was  easily  ex 
plained:  he  might  be  away  from  home, 
or  perhaps  there  was  sickness  in  his 
family.  But  the  acknowledgment  cer 
tainly  was  long  in  coming,  for  the  first 
of  January  found  Mr.  Hunter's  manners 
still  at  fault. 

Yet  although  the  post-office  had  for 
gotten  Mr.  Hamilton,  Mr.  Hamilton  re 
membered  the  post-office! 

"I  tell  you,  Philip,"  he  said,  one 
evening,  as  he  and  a  friend  sat  over 
their  wine  after  dinner — "I  tell  you,  the 
Post-office  Department  of  this  country 
needs  a  tremendous  shaking-up.  Yes, 
51 


PARTNERS 


sir;  heads  have  got  to  fall.  I  have  a 
summer  house  in  that  little  place,  Pur- 
ham — you  know?  up  in  the  hills.  For 
all  practical  purposes  there  is  no  post- 
office  there;  outrageous  carelessness  and 
endless  inconvenience.  But  I  intend  to 
do  my  part  to  secure  a  proper  postal 
service  to  my  native  land." 

"At  least  during  the  summer ?"  com 
mented  the  other  man. 

"There's  a  good  fellow,  a  good  hus 
tling  fellow,  that  I  mean  to  have  put 
there/'  Mr.  Hamilton  went  on.  "Wil 
liam  Sprague — you  remember?  He  was 
my  substitute;  he  has  a  ball  in  his  leg 
now  that  belongs  to  me.  I'm  going  to 
have  that  job  given  to  him.  I've  always 
meant  to  do  something  for  him." 

"Ah,  how  I  respect  a  philanthropist!" 
said  his  friend;  "and  how  just  it  is 
that,  because  he  was  your  substitute  in 
the  war,  the  nation  should  reward  him!" 

His  host,  laughing,  knocked  his  cigar 
ashes  off  against  his  wineglass.  "  Shore, 
52 


PARTNERS 


we've  been  out  in  the  cold  for  twenty- 
four  years,  and  we  don't  propose  to  keep 
away  from  the  fire  to  split  the  straws 
of  ethics.  You  may  consider  that  state 
ment  official." 

"Is  that  the  excuse  you  will  give  to 
the  present  incumbent  when  you  tip 
him  or  her  out?" 

"Look  here,  my  young  reformer," 
protested  the  other  man,  "I  advise  you 
to  take  off  your  kid  gloves.  These  ideas 
of  yours  are  too  damned  fine  for  our 
humble  capital.  Yes,  sir;  they  will  do 
for  your  part  of  the  world,  and  I  am 
sure  we  are  grateful  that  the  chaste 
bosom  of  the  mugwump  should  have 
thrilled  for  us  because  of  our  highly 
moral  principles;  but,  my  dear  fellow, 
now  we  have  come  down  to  business. 
We  are  a  great  deal  more  honest  than 
the  people  you  helped  us  put  out,  there 
is  no  doubt  of  that;  but  we  are  human. 
This  may  surprise  you  as  you  reflect 
upon  our  virtues,  but  we  admit  it — 

5  S3 


PARTNERS 


human.  And  how  shall  we  dispose  of 
the  present  incumbents  in  Purham?" 
He  rose,  with  a  laugh,  straightening  his 
shoulders,  and  lifting  his  handsome  head. 
''No  excuse  but  the  truth  is  necessary. 
They  are  hopelessly  inefficient ;  a  couple 
of  old  maids,  who  hold  back  the  mail- 
bags,  lose  a  man's  letters,  or  deliver 
them  a  week  after  they've  arrived." 
He  laughed,  and  struck  the  younger  man 
good-naturedly  on  the  shoulder.  "See 
here,  my  boy,  don't,  by  the  fineness  of 
your  theories,  make  yourself  unfit  for 
practical  life.  Be  as  good  as  you  can, 
but,  for  the  sake  of  your  theories,  don't 
be  too  good.  Doesn't  the  Bible  say 
somewhere,  don't  be  righteous  over 
much?  A  printed  notice  of  that  ought 
to  be  sent  around  to  the  mugwumps!" 


CHAPTER  IV 

IT  does  seem/'  Mrs.  Gedge  said, 
when,  toward  the  end  of  January, 
no  acknowledgment  had  come  from  Mr. 
Hunter — "it  does  seem  as  though  some 
thing  had  happened  to  that  album/' 

"Well,  mother,  Oily  saw  it  safe  into 
the  express  office;  it  must  have  got  to 
Washington,  anyhow." 

"You  don't  suppose,"  Mrs.  Gedge 
queried,  in  a  troubled  voice — "you  don't 
think  Mr.  Hunter  could  have  thought  it 
was  out  of  the  way,  us  sending  him  a 
present?  'Course  we're  strangers  to 
him." 

"My,  mother!  of  course  he  couldn't," 

Amanda   assured   her.      "It's   just   as 

you    said    last    week — sickness    in    his 

family  or  something  like  that,  has  put 

55 


PARTNERS 


it  out  of  his  mind.  We'll  hear  soon. 
Now,  don't  you  worry;  it  was  a  nice 
gift,  and  will  look  pretty  on  his  center- 
table."  They  had  followed  the  album 
so  closely  with  their  fancy  that  they 
knew  quite  well  how  it  would  look.  Mrs. 
Gedge  had  even  said  that  she  hoped  his 
wife  was  not  a  foolish  young  thing,  who 
would  put  other  books  on  top  of  it  and 
crush  the  plush. 

Poor  Amanda  began  to  dread  the 
coming  of  the  mail-bag,  for  each  day 
there  was  always  the  same  hesitating 
question:  "Didn't  any  letter  come  this 
noon,  I  suppose?  I  somehow  didn't  look 
for  one  to-day." 

"No,  mother,  not  to-day;"  then  an 
excuse:  "He  would  have  had  to  write 
on  Monday  to  reach  us  by  this  mail, 
and  Monday's  a  real  inconvenient  day;" 
or,  "It's  the  end  of  the  month;  very 
likely  he's  real  driven  with  his  accounts." 

They  had  written  to  the  express  office, 
and  learned  that  the  package  had  been 
56 


PARTNERS 


delivered  to  Mr.  Hunter's  office,  so  they 
could  not  have  even  the  comfort  of 
thinking  that  it  was  lost.  Day  by  day 
Mrs.  Gedge's  assurance  that  she  was 
sure  everything  was  all  right,  and  that 
she  knew,  in  her  position,  "how  hard 
it  was  for  some  folks  to  write  letters"- 
day  by  day  such  assurances  grew  more 
forced  in  their  cheerfulness.  When  the 
first  of  February  passed,  and  the  usual 
official  communication  from  Washing 
ton  failed  to  bring  with  it  any  per 
sonal  communication,  Mrs.  Gedge  al 
most  cried  and  Amanda  said  to  herself 
that  she  just  couldn't  stand  it!  Her 
high  forehead  gathered  new  wrinkles  in 
those  bleak  winter  days,  and  anxiety 
gnawed  at  her  heart,  for  it  was  quite 
evident  that  the  suspense  was  wearing 
upon  her  mother. 

One   afternoon,   coming  home   from 

sewing  -  society,    she    stopped    on    the 

bridge  to  watch  the  water  racing  down 

the  wide  shallow  bed  of  the  brook,  leap- 

57 


PARTNERS 


ing  tumultuously  over  the  larger  stones, 
and  sending  a  faint  continuous  jar 
through  the  hand-rail  on  which  she 
leaned.  The  ice,  curving  in  and  out 
along  the  shore  in  clear  and  snowy  lines, 
was  like  an  onyx  band;  the  twigs  of 
a  leaning  maple,  dipping  into  the  water, 
were  fringed  with  icicles,  that  jangled 
as  they  rose  and  fell  on  the  current. 
It  was  late,  and  the  cold  dusk,  pricked 
by  some  uncertain,  hesitating  pellets  of 
snow,  seemed  to  Amanda  to  increase 
the  ache  below  her  breast-bone.  She 
watched  a  flake  touch  the  stream  for  a 
white  moment,  then  fade  into  its  hur 
rying  blackness.  Amanda  did  not  con 
sciously  moralize,  but  the  futile  flakes 
suggested  her  own  inarticulate  pain. 
She,  too,  was  helpless  in  the  stream; 
there  was  nothing  she  could  do.  Noth 
ing — nothing!  "Oh,  that  old  album! 
I'd  like  to  burn  it!"  she  said,  passion 
ately.  Suddenly  it  occurred  to  her  that 
she  might  tell  her  mother  that  probably 
58 


PARTNERS 


Mr.  Hunter  was  dead.  If  he  was  dead 
he  was  not  neglectful,  so  her  mother's 
feelings  need  not  be  hurt.  Amanda,  in 
the  gathering  darkness,  wiping  away  a 
meager  tear,  would  have  seen  Mr.  Hun 
ter  and  all  his  family,  dead  and  buried, 
if  their  demise  would  make  her  mother 
happier ! 

She  did  not  propose  Mr.  Hunter's 
death  as  a  solution  of  the  puzzle,  until 
the  next  morning;  then  Mrs.  Gedge's 
concern  about  the  Sixth  Auditor  of  the 
Treasury  was  almost  as  alarming  as  her 
previous  suspense,  and  Amanda  had  a 
desperate  feeling  of  not  knowing  in 
which  direction  to  turn  next. 

The  wind  was  high  and  cold  that  day, 
although  the  sun  shone;  but  Mrs.  Gedge 
was  so  disturbed  about  Mr.  Hunter,  she 
said  she  believed  she  wouldn't  get  up; 
she  said  the  glare  of  the  sun  on  the  snow 
hurt  her  eyes,  and  she'd  rather  lie  in  bed. 

Amanda's  heavy  heart  grew  still 
heavier.  " She's  failing!"  she  said  to 
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herself.  ''I  guess  he's  well,  mother," 
she  declared;  ''It  was  real  foolish  for 
me  to  think  he  wasn't.  Why,  they'd 
have  sent  us  word  if  anything  had  hap 
pened  to  him. 

"Well,  then,  why  don't  we  hear  from 
him?" 

"I  guess  we  will,  real  soon,"  poor 
Amanda  tried  to  sooth  her. 

"You  don't  think  anybody  thinks 
anything,  do  you,  'Mandy?  You  never 
let  on  to  anybody  — Sally  Goodrich  or 
anybody- — that  the  album  was  for  Mr. 
Hunter,  and  he  hasn't  written  to  us?" 

"No,  mother;  no,  indeed!  There 
isn't  a  person  that  guesses.  Nobody 
but  Oily  saw  the  address,  and  he  don't 
know  who  Mr.  Hunter  is;  he  don't 
know  but  what  he's  a  relation." 

There  were  no  demonstrations  of 
affection  between  these  two;  it  would 
not  have  occurred  to  Amanda  to  kiss 
her  mother,  but  she  took  her  little  blue 
check  shawl  from  about  her  own  shoul- 
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ders  and  laid  it  across  Mrs.  Gedge's  feet. 
"I'll  be  back  from  the  office  as  soon  as 
ever  I  can,"  she  said.  She  hurried  so  in 
sorting  the  mail  that  she  was  not  so 
much  as  usual  on  the  lookout  for  a 
Washington  letter — when  suddenly  she 
found  it  in  her  hand !  Her  heart  seemed 
to  stop  with  the  shock  of  joy — it  had 
come!  Her  mother  would  feel  better! 
''Oh,  she  '11  get  up  for  dinner!"  Amanda 
said,  with  a  gasp  of  happiness. 

The  outer  door  of  the  office  banged 
open,  and  Oily  entered  again.  "Here's 
a  bundle  for  you,  'Mandy,"  he  said; 
"I  clean  forgot  to  leave  it  when  I  hove 
in  the  bag." 

She  raised  the  delivery  window  and 
took  the  package,  which  was  addressed 
to  her  mother;  she  was  putting  the  mail 
into  the  call-boxes,  all  the  while  holding 
the  precious  letter  tightly  in  one  hand, 
so  she  pushed  the  bundle  aside.  "It's 
some  blanks,  I  guess,"  she  thought.  It 
seemed  to  Amanda  that  Sally  Good- 
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rich  was  never  so  slow  in  getting  her 
purse  out  of  the  pocket  of  her  petticoat 
to  pay  for  a  sheet  of  writing-paper;  nor 
was  Mr.  Thyme,  who  kept  the  tavern, 
ever  so  insistent  that  there  ought  to  be 
some  inquiries  about  summer  board,  and 
he  didn't  see  why  there  weren't  no 
letters  for  him. 

In  spite  of  these  delays,  Amanda  was 
smiling  with  happiness  when  it  struck 
her  that  the  package  was  a  present  from 
Mr.  Hunter!— she  could  hardly  wait  for 
Mr.  Thyme  to  close  the  post-office  door, 
before  she  seized  the  bundle  and  the 
letter,  and  ran  into  her  mother's  room. 
"It's  come!"  she  said;  "he's  written! 
And  he's  sent  us  something — look!  a 
present !' '  The  rush  of  forgiveness  made 
her  voice  break,  but  Mrs.  Gedge  was 
wonderfully  calm.  The  old  sense  of  her 
importance  gave  her  at  least  the  appear 
ance  of  treating  Mr.  Hunter's  courtesy 
as  a  matter  of  course. 

"I  hope  he  didn't  feel  under  any 
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obligation  to  give  us  a  present,  kind  as 
it  is  in  him.  Open  the  letter  first,  and 
see  what  he  says.  Hurry,  child!'* 

Amanda's  fingers  blundered  with  the 
envelope;  she  began  to  read  the  letter 
breathlessly — paused;  looked  at  her 
mother,  blankly;  then  read  on: 

11 'Mr.  Hunter  desires  to  acknowledge 
the  receipt  of  a  package  from  Mrs.  Gedge, 
for  which  he  begs  to  express  his  thanks. 
He  regrets  that  he  must  herewith  return 
the  package,  his  position  precluding  the 
acceptance  of  gifts.1 ' 

Mrs.  Gedge  leaned  back  on  her  pil 
lows,  fright  and  bewilderment  in  her  face. 
"'Mandy,  it's  our  album,"  she  said. 
"Oh,  'Mandy!"  Her  cheeks  seemed  to 
hollow  in,  and  her  chin  shook.  "  It's  our 
album,"  she  whispered. 

Amanda  Gedge  stood  panting,  the 
letter  in  her  shaking  hand.  "Why, 
mother!  wait!  I  don't  believe  it's  the 
album;  wait  till  I  look !"  But  when  she 
had  looked,  alas,  there  was  no  more 
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uncertainty,  and  she  turned  to  the  letter 
again.  "Mother,  don't  cry!  There's 
some  mistake — "  (Amanda  was  crying 
herself.)  "I  think  he's  friendly;  let  me 
read  it  again.  Listen,  mother:  he  begs 
to  express  his  thanks — begs,  mother. 
Oh,  I'm  sure  he's  friendly.  He  regrets 
— that  means  he  is  very  sorry;  regret 
means  being  sorry.  It  is  his  position, 
the  letter  says,  that  makes  him  return 
it.  And — and  he  tells  the  person  who 
wrote  the  letter  for  him,  to  send  his 
thanks.  You  see,  he's  so  busy  he  can't 
even  write  himself." 

But  the  shock  was  too  great  for  Mrs. 
Gedge  to  be  able  to  see  any  "  friendli 
ness"  in  the  letter  written  by  "another 
person."  She  dropped  her  worn  old 
face  on  the  pillow  and  whimpered. 
"Take  it  away,"  she  said,  feebly;  and 
Amanda  carried  the  album  into  the 
kitchen.  She  was  so  excited  and  fright 
ened,  so  angry  that  her  mother 's  gift 
had  been  scorned,  that  she  touched  the 
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only  note  of  passion  that  had  ever  come 
into  her  life.  She  flung  the  rejected 
present  on  the  table,  and  struck  it  with 
her  clenched  fist,  saying,  under  her 
breath,  a  single  word.  The  word  was 
only  "  You!"  but  as  far  as  the  spirit 
went,  Amanda  broke  the  Third  Com 
mandment. 

It  was  several  days  before  Mrs.  Gedge 
could  consider  the  letter  reasonably,  but 
little  by  little  she  began  to  echo,  at  first 
rather  feebly,  Amanda's  assurance  that 
Mr.  'Hunter  was  "  friendly."  Then  she 
became  quite  positive:  "Of  course  it's 
his  position, ' '  she  said ;  "I  ought  to  have 
thought  of  that,  in  the  first  place!  I 
guess  he  hated  to  send  it  back,  but  he 
just  had  to." 

Meantime  March  was  blown  into 
April;  it  had  been  a  hard  month  for 
Mrs.  Gedge,  what  with  the  agitation 
about  the  album  and  the  changes  in  the 
temperature.  But  the  old  postmistress 
was  not  the  only  person  who  found  the 
6s 


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season  trying.    William  Sprague  said  to 
Mr.  Hamilton,  who  stopped  to  see  him 
one  day  at  his  news-stand  in  Boston — he 
told  Mr.  Hamilton  that  he  felt  that  old 
wound  in  his   leg  in   such   changeable 
weather;  why,  he  believed  that  he  could 
foretell  a  storm  as  much  as  three  days 
before  it  came;   he  said  he  didn't  know 
but  what  he'd  offer  his  services  to  the 
Weather  Bureau  in  Washington!     Mr. 
Hamilton  laughed  in  his  easy  way,  and 
said   he   shouldn't   wonder   if   William 
would  be  the  better  for  a  change  of  air. 
"But  the  Washington  climate  is  bad  for 
game  legs,  Sprague;  what  do  you  say  to 
Vermont?"    Then  he  said  a  dozen  words 
that  left  his  hearer  aghast  with  pleasure. 
"And  I'm  to  be  ready  the  last  of 
May,  sir?"  William  said,  eagerly,  when 
Mr.  Hamilton's  beneficent  scheme  had 
been  fully  explained  to  him.     ' '  All  right, 
sir,  all  right!     I'll  be  on  hand.     There's 
not  much  for  me  to  do  in  the  way  of 
shutting  up  shop.     I'll  just  sell  out  and 
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pack  up  my  duds.  I  haven't  any  furni 
ture  now  my  poor  wife's  dead  and  gone. 
I  auctioned  it  off." 

William  Sprague's  honest  face  was  red 
with  excitement.  He  was  a  short,  stout 
man,  with  kindly,  twinkling  blue  eyes 
and  a  grizzled,  red  beard.  He  wore  a 
G.  A.  R.  badge,  and  walked  with  a 
limp;  he  was  stiff  with  rheumatism, 
but  was  never  too  crippled  or  too  hur 
ried  to  stop  to  do  a  kindness — pick  up 
a  fallen  child  and  comfort  it  with  a 
penny,  or  walk  an  extra  mile  to  do  a 
favor  for  a  friend.  Yet  people  were  apt 
to  say  he  was  contrary,  and  cite  as  an 
instance  his  long  feud  with  McCor- 
mick,  his  rival  on  the  next  block — a 
warfare  waged  with  the  greatest  bitter 
ness  on  Sprague's  side,  and  furnishing 
much  pleasant  interest  to  those  not 
concerned  in  it. 

"William  was  like  to  kill  him,  till 
McCormick  got  the  fever,"  Sprague's 
friends  said,  "and  then,  darn  him!  he 
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up  and  nursed  him  for  six  weeks. 
Wasn't  that  the  contraries^  thing  ye 
ever  heard  of?" 

The  fact  was  William  Sprague  liked 
to  do  a  kindness;  but  it  was  a  question 
whether  he  could  do  a  kindness  if  it  were 
expected  of  him.  "I  won't  be  drov'," 
said  William;  and  he  never  was. 

"I'll  feel  bad  to  leave  some  of  my 
old  comrades,"  he  told  Mr.  Hamilton; 
"but  I'm  obliged  to  you,  sir,  I'm  obliged 
to  you.  There's  nothing  I'd  like  better 
than  to  run  a  post-office.  You  can 
count  on  my  vote  when  you're  runnin' 
for  President.  I  bet  we'll  see  you  in 
the  White  House  yet!  Take  a  paper, 
Mr.  Hamilton;  take  a  Herald."  He 
folded  a  paper  and  thrust  it  into  the 
hand  of  his  patron.  "No,  sir!  not  a 
cent!  I  guess  I  can  give  you  a  paper; 
and  a  good  Democratic  organ,  too!" 

He  laughed,  and  so  did  Mr.  Hamil 
ton. 

"Much  obliged,  Sprague.  Well,  good 
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morning!  I  shall  expect  to  see  you 
settled  when  I  get  up  to  my  country 
place  in  July."  Then  he  stooped  and 
patted  Jimmy,  William's  rusty  little 
Scotch  terrier,  and  went  away. 

William  Sprague  was,  as  Mr.  Hamil 
ton  said,  a  capable,  efficient  man.  He 
went  to  work  to  wind  up  the  affairs 
of  his  news-stand  with  business-like 
promptitude.  He  drove  a  sharp  bargain 
with  the  man  who  bought  him  out,  and 
cleared  ten  dollars  by  the  sale  of  odds 
and  ends  about  his  small  premises. 

"I'd  meant  to  pitch  'em  into  the  ash 
bar'l,"  he  confided  to  one  of  his  cronies, 
"but  of  course  I  didn't  tell  him  so;  he 
saw  me  packin'  'em  up,  and  that  made 
him  hot  for  'em!"  He  winked  and 
chuckled,  then  whistled  to  a  newsboy 
across  the  street:  "Sonny,  if  you'll 
bring  in  a  dozen  of  the  fellows  to-night. 
I  '11  give  you  a  treat." 

And  he  did.  "He  come  down  hand 
some,"  the  boys  said,  afterward,  with 

e  69 


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ice-cream — two  kinds ;  and  three  dough 
nuts  apiece. 

The  days  of  waiting  for  his  appoint 
ment  went  slowly  to  William  Sprague, 
but  they  were  passing  with  placid  haste 
to  Mrs.  Gedge,  who  by  that  time  had 
become  entirely  reconciled  to  her  own 
explanation  of  Mr.  Hunter's  ungracious 
behavior. 


CHAPTER  V 

MAY  was  very  lovely  among  the 
hills.  The  sunshine,  threaded  by 
sudden  showers,  or  chased  by  cloud 
shadows  and  warm  winds,  lay  like  a 
smile  upon  the  Purham  meadows.  The 
lilac  buds  opened  into  green  stars,  with 
that  faint,  indefinable  fragrance  which 
the  later  purple  blossoms  exaggerate 
almost  into  coarseness.  The  brook  was 
high,  and  the  whirling  brown  waters 
shook  the  wooden  bridge  in  a  threatening 
way;  the  red  buds  of  the  leaning  maple 
dipped  into  the  flood,  and  strained  and 
tugged  at  their  stems  as  though  trying 
to  be  off  on  its  turbulent  freedom;  all 
the  world  was  full  of  joyous  life  and 
promise. 

One    blue,    still    afternoon    Amanda 
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Gedge  went  up  to  the  burying-ground 
on  the  hill  to  brush  away  the  sheltering 
dead  leaves  on  Willie's  grave,  and  plant 
a  root  of  lilies  of  the  valley.  The  sun 
was  warm  on  the  slope,  and  although  it 
was  indiscreet  for  a  person  who  was 
over  forty  and  rheumatic,  Amanda, 
after  she  had  performed  her  little  office 
of  love,  spread  out  her  shawl  and  sat 
down  on  the  grass  to  meditate.  Some 
thing  must  be  done  about  the  tintype: 
The  bit  of  glass  that  covered  it  was  badly 
spotted  with  mildew;  she  must  take  it 
off  and  clean  it,  and  wipe  the  tintype 
very  carefully.  The  thought  of  holding 
the  picture  in  her  hand  after  all  these 
years  gave  her  a  thrill ;  and  the  pleasure 
of  doing  even  such  a  little  thing  for 
Willie,  was  a  phantom  of  the  pleasure 
she  would  have  known  had  she  been 
his  wife  and  been  able  to  serve  him. 
She  smoothed  the  grass  where,  under 
the  sheltering  dead  leaves,  it  had  whit 
ened  to  a  silky  smoothness,  and  she 
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PARTNERS 


hoped  the  lily  root  would  grow.  Willie 
had  loved  flowers — except  toward  the 
end;  he  had  not  loved  anything  at  the 
end.  One  day  when  she  carried  him  a 
bunch  of  cardinal  flowers,  he  had  turned 
fretfully  away  and  told  her  not  to  bother. 

''Willie  was  so  sick,"  she  said  to  her 
self,  pitifully;  but  she  wondered  if  sick 
ness  could  have  made  her  careless  of 
any  flowers  Willie  might  have  brought 
her?  "No,"  she  said  to  herself,  "I  would 
have  loved  them,  no  matter  how  sick 
I  was.  But  I'm  a  girl ;  girls  are  different 
from  men."  She  put  her  arm  around 
the  slate  stone,  and  touched  his  name 
with  her  lips.  "Good-by,  Willie,"  she 
said,  softly.  Amanda  always  said  good- 
by  to  him  when  she  left  him  alone 
on  the  hillside.  She  knew  that  Willie 
was  in  heaven,  but  somehow  he  seemed 
here,  too,  under  the  leaning  piece  of 
slate  and  the  bleached  winter  grass. 

When  she  got  back  to  the  post-office, 
tired,  but  full  of  the  peace  of  the  calm 
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PARTNERS 


sweet  afternoon,  her  mother  had  a  dozen 
small  happenings  to  report.  Amanda 
listened  to  everything  with  keen  inter 
est;  and  not  until  all  the  gossip  was 
repeated  and  commented  upon  did  she 
confide  her  plan  about  the  glass  over 
the  tintype.  Mrs.  Gedge  agreed  that 
it  was  the  thing  to  do,  though  it  would 
cost  money  to  get  that  glass  out  of  the 
lead  that  held  it  into  the  stone. 

"You  are  certainly  faithful,  'Mandy!" 
she  said;  Amanda  smiled.  "I  guess/' 
Mrs.  Gedge  went  on,  "feeling  the  way 
you  do,  you'll  never  marry."  Amanda 
laughed  outright.  "But  it's  a  pity  for 
a  girl  to  be  an  old  maid!  Still,  I  like 
to  have  you  faithful  to  your  beau. 
But  my  gracious,  what  would  you  have 
done  if  you'd  been  left  like  me,  if  you 
take  on  so,  and  Willie  only  your  beau?" 
Amanda  was  silent. 

It  was  too  dark  to  knit,  but  Mrs. 
Gedge  saw  her  daughter,  who  was  sort 
ing  the  mail,  put  aside  an  official  letter; 
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PARTNERS 


instantly  she  wanted  to  know  what  was 
in  it.  "  Do  make  haste !"  she  said.  * '  My, 
you  ain't  real  quick,  'Mandy.  I  wonder 
if  they  are  going  to  change  the  stamps! 
They're  not  pretty — the  stamps." 

Amanda  looked  over  her  shoulder  to 
say,  "H-s-sh;"-  —  the  Public  must  not 
overhear  an  official  criticism!  But  she 
took  time  to  give  her  mother  the  letter, 
for  though  Mrs.  Gedge  could  not  read  it 
in  the  fading  light  by  the  window,  and 
Amanda  had  the  lamp  to  assist  her  in 
sorting  the  mail,  it  was  a  satisfaction  to 
the  old  postmistress  to  hold  it  in  her 
crippled  hands.  As  soon  as  her  public 
duties  had  been  discharged,  Amanda 
opened  the  envelope. 

"I  can't  stop  to  talk,"  she  said,  with 
her  official  smile,  to  two  or  three  women 
who  were  waiting  to  gossip  with  her  at 
the  delivery  window,  "  because  I  must 
attend  to  some  Washington  business;" 
and,  properly  impressed,  the  ladies  could 
only  talk  to  each  other. 
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PARTNERS 


"Read  it,   child,  read  it!"   said  her 
mother,  impatiently. 
Amanda  read : 

MADAM, — It  is  deemed  for  the  best  interests 
of  the  service  that  a  change  be  made  in  the 
post-office  at  Purham.  Your  resignation  will, 
therefore,  be  accepted,  to  take  effect  on  the  ist 
day  of  June.  Yours  truly, 

The  name  that  followed  Amanda  did 
not  know. 

"Why,  I  don't  understand,"  said  Mrs. 
Gedge.  ' '  What  does  it  mean  ?' ' 

Amanda  stared  at  her;  then  grew  a 
little  faint,  and  sat  down. 

"  But  I  don't  understand,"  her  mother 
repeated,  in  a  dazed  way. 

"  Don't! — they'll  hear,"  Amanda  whis 
pered. 

'"Handy?"  the  terrified  old  voice 
whispered  back. 

Without  a  word,  Amanda  wrapped  her 
shawl  about  the  little,  shrinking  figure, 
and  opened  the  door  into  the  hall. 

"I'm  going  to  wheel  mother  into  the 


PARTNERS 


sitting-room,"  she  called  to  the  women 
who  were  standing  by  the  counter. 

Her  voice  was  husky,  and  there  was 
a  swift  precision  in  her  manner,  which 
they  noticed  and  commented  on.  They 
said  they  supposed  that  Amanda  Gedge 
was  getting  real  worried  about  the  old 
lady,  and  no  wonder,  either.  They 
waited  a  good  while,  hoping  that  she 
would  return;  but  as  she  didn't,  they 
said  it  was  lucky  they  were  there,  for 
Mrs.  Dace  came  hurrying  in  to  buy 
a  stamp,  and  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  giggling  about  "being  the  post 
mistress/'  for,  rather  than  bother 
'Mandy,  they  went  behind  the  pigeon 
holes  themselves,  and  in  the  most 
obliging  way  in  the  world,  opened  the 
stamp-box  and  received  Mrs.  Dace's 
two  pennies  just  as  well  as  'Mandy  her 
self  could  have  done.  Then,  laughing, 
they  went  off  into  the  twilight,  leaving 
the  old  post-office  in  dusky  quiet,  its 
door  standing  hospitably  open, 
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PARTNERS 


It  was  nine  o'clock  before  Amanda 
Gedge  came  back.  She  closed  the  door, 
turned  the  lamp  down  low,  and  dropped 
into  a  chair.  With  her  face  hidden  in  her 
hands,  she  went  all  over  the  last  three 
hours:  her  mother's  bewilderment  and 
terror;  the  shock  to  her  pride,  a  pride 
which  seemed,  Amanda  had  thought, 
watching  the  old  face  wither  and  whiten 
—to  be  her  life;  then  the  struggle  to 
find  an  explanation,  and  at  last  the 
rally  of  courage  when  Mrs.  Gedge  cried 
out  suddenly  that  she  knew  what  the 
letter  meant!  The  relief  of  her  own 
insight  was  for  a  moment  almost  too 
great  for  words.  "The  best  interests 
of  the  service,"  she  said,  with  a  gasp; 
"for  our  interests,  'Mandy;  don't  you 
see?  It  is  just  consideration!  They 
think  I'm  too  old  for  such  hard  work. 
That's  it,  I  know  it  is.  It's  kindness. 
But,  'Mandy,  child,  you  go  right  in  to 
the  office,  and  write  to  the  President; 
it's  no  use  wasting  time  on  the  help — 
78 


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go  to  the  highest-up  person — go  to 
the  President  of  the  United  States! 
You  write  to  him;  tell  him  I  am  not 
too  old  to  work  for  the  Government; 
of  course  that's  what  they  think — you 
can  see  that  from  the  letter;  they  think 
I'm  too  old,  and  they  give  me  the 
chance  to  resign.  Well,  you  say  I  am 
obliged,  but  it  isn't  necessary.  You 
see,  they  think  the  work  is  too  much 
for  me.  Oh,  don't  let  the  President 
think  I  don't  appreciate  it,  but  tell  him 
to  tell  the  Postmaster  it  isn't  neces 
sary;  tell  him  I  could  not  think  of 
giving  up  my  job.  Why,  I  couldn't  de 
sert  the  Government  after  these  twenty 
years!  And  explain  to  him  how  much 
you  are  able  to  do  now  you  are  older. 
Tell  him  I  call  you  my  "partner" 
just  as  a  joke.  Write  pleasant,  'Mandy. 
You  know  you  were  young  when  I  got 
the  place,  and  they  have  forgotten  that 
you  are  older  now."  She  looked  up  at 
her  daughter,  and  actually  laughed  with 
79 


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relief.  "My!  it  did  give  me  a  start! 
But  you  see  what  it  means?" 

"Oh,  yes/'  Amanda  assured  her; 
"why,  of  course."  Her  whole  body  was 
quivering,  but  she  managed  to  keep  her 
voice  steady;  the  childishness  of  the 
explanation  was  a  shock  to  her;  but  she 
could  not  stop  to  realize  its  full  signifi 
cance.  "We  won't  resign,"  she  was 
saying  to  herself;  "that's  all  there  is  to 
it;  we  won't!"  Aloud,  she  said  coura 
geously:  "It's  all  right,  don't  you 
worry!" 

"  'Course  I  won't  worry,"  Mrs.  Gedge 
retorted;  "there's  nothing  to  worry 
about!  You  write  that  letter  just  as  I 
told  you." 

"Yes,  mother,  soon  as  I  get  you  to 
bed,"  Amanda  promised. 

But  now  alone  in  the  dark  office  she 
faced  the  facts : 

"They  will  'accept1  mother's  resigna 
tion.  We  have  got  to  get  out.  But  we 
won't!  It's  Mr.  Hamilton  di4  it,  Oh, 
So 


PARTNERS 


that  man!  Well,  we  won't  resign.  I'll 
write  and  tell  them  so,  and  very  likely 
we'll  never  hear  anything  more  about 
it.  But  at  any  rate,  we  won't  resign.11 
She  would  never  forgive  Mr.  Hamilton, 
she  was  sure  of  that.  The  blow  to 
her  mother — Amanda's  shoulders  shook 
as  she  sat  there,  her  head  on  her  knees, 
swaying  to  and  fro  with  misery — the 
shock  to  Mrs.  Gedge  was  too  great  to 
be  forgiven.  "Oh,  if  I  only  hadn't  lost 
his  letter!  It's  my  fault;  it's  all  my 
fault;  I'm  to  blame,  not  mother — " 

After  a  while  she  sat  up,  drawing  a 
long,  quivering  breath;  she  must  not 
waste  any  more  time;  she  must  write 
the  letter  explaining  that  Mrs.  Gedge 
was  much  obliged,  but  did  not  care  to 
avail  herself  of  the  kindness  of  the  Gov 
ernment,  and  therefore  would  not  re 
sign.  This  was  the  letter  to  the  Presi 
dent,  for  Mrs.  Gedge  to  sign.  Then,  on  a 
sheet  of  thin  pink  paper,  with  a  print  of 
a  rose  in  the  upper  left-hand  corner, 
81 


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came  the  real  letter  —  Amanda's  self- 
accusation.  She  wrote  with  passionate 
haste,  unlike  her  usual  labored  corre 
spondence  with  the  department.  "  Oh, " 
she  was  saying  to  herself,  "even  if  they 
did  mean  it  kindly,  as  mother  thinks,  it 
may  kill  her.  But  they  didn't  mean  it 
kindly — they  want  to  put  us  out!  Oh, 
that  Hamilton  man- 
When,  at  last,  the  letter  written,  she 
took  up  her  lamp,  she  suddenly  remem 
bered  the  flag.  She  had  not  lowered  the 
flag!  Never,  in  all  these  years,  had  she 
forgotten  the  flag  for  which  her  father 
and  her  lover  had  died!  As  she  stood 
in  the  darkness,  letting  the  halyards 
slip  through  her  fingers  until  the  stars 
and  stripes  came  softly  down  into  her 
extended  arms,  Amanda  felt  the  full 
agony  of  loss — they  would  take  the  flag 
away  from  her! 

Mrs.  Gedge's  prim  refusal  to  accept 
the  suggestion  made  by  the  department, 
and  Amanda's  poor,  passionate  letter, 
82 


PARTNERS 


went  off  the  next  morning.  As  days 
passed  without  any  answering  communi 
cation  from  Washington,  Amanda  grew 
calmer  than  she  had  thought  she  could 
be  while  this  cruel  uncertainty  was  hang 
ing  over  her.  As  for  Mrs.  Gedge,  she 
began  to  gather  an  immense  amount  of 
comfort  and  pride  from  what  she  chose 
to  regard  as  an  expression  of  Govern 
mental  consideration.  She  told  Amanda 
that  she  really  wished  the  Public  knew 
of  it.  She  didn't  want  to  be  proud,  she 
said,  but  it  was  gratifying,  and  she 
almost  wished  Sally  Goodrich  knew  it. 
The  innocent  importance  cut  Amanda 
to  the  heart.  "Oh,  she  ain't  herself," 
she  thought,  quaking.  Aloud,  she  only 
said  it  wouldn't  do  to  tell  folks  about 
it.  "  Maybe  you're  right,"  Mrs.  Gedge 
said,  reluctantly;  " we're  not  like  ordi 
nary  people;  we  can't  tell  our  affairs." 
Although  the  refusal  to  resign  had 
apparently  been  accepted  in  Washing 
ton  without  a  protest — for  no  response 
83 


PARTNERS 


was  made  to  the  two  letters — Amanda 
found  herself  counting  the  days  until 
the  ist  of  June.  She  did  not  know  why. 
She  only  felt  that  something  was  going 
to  happen  then.  But  those  soft  spring 
days  brightened  Mrs.  Gedge  wonder 
fully — the  weather,  and  the  quiet  of 
her  mind,  for,  not  hearing  from  the 
President,  the  shock  of  the  letter  she 
had  at  first  so  grievously  misunderstood, 
faded  entirely  from  her  memory.  Her 
forgetfulness  gave  poor  Amanda  another 
pang. 

The  second  week  in  May  Mrs.  Gedge 
said  that,  although  she  felt  better,  she 
believed  she  would  not  go  into  the  office 
for  a  few  days;  the  being  wheeled  over 
made  her  bones  ache,  and  she'd  just  as 
lief  stay  in  the  sitting-room,  she  said. 
But  from  her  window  she  could  still 
watch  the  world;  and  one  day,  when 
the  stage  came  rumbling  up  at  noon, 
she  saw  a  man  on  the  box-seat  at  Olly's 
side,  who  roused  her  curiosity.  When 
84 


PARTNERS 


her  daughter  came  in  to  get  dinner,  she 
spoke  of  him. 

"He  was  real  pleasant-looking,"  she 
said,  as  Amanda  pushed  her  chair  up 
to  the  table;  "real  pleasant,  but  big; 
though  he  ain't  to  blame  for  that. 
Who  do  you  think  he  can  be?  He  had 
a  little  dog  sitting  up  beside  him,  like 
a  little  deacon!  I  like  to  see  a  man 
friendly  with  a  dog.  He  isn't  the  sew 
ing-machine  man ;  maybe  he's  a  dentist?" 

"Or  a  book  agent,"  suggested  Aman 
da.  "I  like  book  agents,  they  have  so 
much  conversation.  Sometimes  I  think, 
if  I'd  the  money,  I'd  buy  one  of  their 
books,  they  do  talk  so  nice  about  'em." 

"He  looked  up  at  the  flag,  and  waved 
his  hand.  I  guess  he's  been  a  soldier," 
Mrs.  Gedge  commented. 

"Guess  likely,"  Amanda  agreed. 

"When  Mr.  Thyme  comes  in,  child, 
you  be  sure  and  ask  who  he  is.  It's 
too  early  for  a  summer  boarder." 

It    was    delightful    to    have    a    new 

7  8* 


PARTNERS 


topic  of  conversation.  William  Sprague, 
" cleaning  himself"  before  a  small  mir 
ror  in  the  office  at  the  tavern,  had  no 
idea  how  much  pleasure  his  advent  had 
given.  William's  coming  to  Purham 
thus  early  was  simply  because  his  im 
portant  happiness  demanded  some  kind 
of  action.  The  day  that  Mrs.  Gedge 
had  been  notified  that  her  resignation 
would  be  accepted,  a  communication 
had  come  to  William  Sprague,  showing 
the  reverse  side  of  that  notification. 
He  read  his  Washington  letter  a  dozen 
times  a  day  for  sheer  pleasure;,  and 
each  day  the  ist  of  June  seemed  farther 
off!  He  packed  his  trunk  at  once,  and 
when  he  had  had  a  week  of  inconven 
ience  in  unpacking  and  repacking  when 
ever  he  wanted  anything,  it  occurred  to 
him  that  the  best  thing  he  could  do 
would  be  to  take  Jimmy  and  go  to  Pur- 
ham,  and  while  waiting  for  the  ist  of 
June,  become  acquainted  with  the  place 
and  the  people. 

86 


PARTNERS 


"It's  two  weeks  before  I  go  into 
office,"  he  told  his  friends,  "but  I'll  be 
learning  the  ropes,  and  get  a  good  grip 
on  my  job." 

He  was  as  full  of  enthusiasm  and  of 
plans  for  reform  in  what  he  knew  noth 
ing  about,  as  was  Mr.  Hamilton  him 
self.  He  took  it  for  granted,  after  the 
manner  of  all  new  brooms,  that  every 
thing  in  Purham  was  in  the  most  shock 
ing  condition  of  neglect  and  dilapida 
tion.  Yes,  the  sooner  he  got  there  and 
looked  about  him,  and  investigated  the 
poor,  feeble,  inefficient  post-office,  the 
better!  So,  one  fine  morning,  with  only 
the  delay  of  carting  his  trunk  to  the 
station,  William  Sprague  hurried  off  to 
his  kingdom;  in  the  afternoon,  on  the 
box-seat  beside  Oily  Clough,  with  Jimmy 
between  his  knees,  he  went  swinging  and 
creaking  along  the  hilly  roads  toward 
Purham. 

He  did  not  tell  Oily  who  he  was;  he 
preferred  the  sensation  of  coming  into 
87 


PARTNERS 


his  kingdom  in  disguise.  But  he  was 
very  gracious;  he  complimented  the 
country  that  stretched  before  him,  in 
terms  which  intimated  a  willingness  to 
overlook  any  mistakes  on  the  part  of 
the  Creator;  he  thought  the  houses 
seemed  comfortable,  and  he  said  that 
the  barns  were  quite  a  size ;  he  admitted 
that  it  had  apparently  rained  consider 
able,  but  he  felt  that  it  did  good,  a  big 
rain;  it  made  him  stiff  in  his  joints,  but 
it  did  good,  and  he  wasn't  one  to  com 
plain.  By  and  by  he  approached  the 
subject  of  Purham. 

"Pretty  place?" 

Oily  looked  vacant.  "I  ain't  thought 
about  its  being  purty." 

"Large  population?"  Mr.  Sprague 
inquired. 

"Sizable." 

William  Sprague  cleared  his  throat 
and  seemed  much  interested  in  the  off 
leader.  "Good  mare  that?  Yes?  Ha 
—hum;  the  post-office,  now"- —this  with 


PARTNERS 


striking  indifference—  •"  quite  a  job  to 
run  it?" 

Oily  endeavored  to  conceal  his  pride. 
" She's  fair,"  he  conceded,  "fair.  You 
don't  see  none  better  'an  her  in  the 
city." 

William  said  city  horses  weren't  in 
the  mare's  class;  then  he  tried  to  woo 
Oily  back  to  the  post-office:  "Needs 
brains  to  run  an  office?"  The  stage- 
driver  was  plainly  not  interested. 

"Never  heard  any  complaint  of 
'Mandy,"  he  said. 

"'Mandy?" 

"She  and  her  mother  run  it;  been 
there  since  the  war." 

"Well!"  said  William,  much  inter 
ested.  "What  are  they  goin'  to  do?" 

"Do?"  said  Oily,  puzzled. 

"When  the  change  is  made.  The 
other  party  is  in  now,  and  their  men  are 
gettin'  the  jobs." 

Olly's  chuckle  came  as  though  jolted 
out  of  him.  "Well,  I  guess  nobody 
89 


PARTNERS 


won't  get  old  Mis'  Gedge's  job  in  our 
post  -  office!"  He  paused  to  silently 
wave  his  whip  at  the  green  expanse  of 
the  valley  below  them.  Oily  thought 
it  was  good  farming  land  himself,  but 
the  summer  visitors  made  a  fuss  about 
the  "view,"  as  they  called  it,  so  he  al 
ways  pointed  it  out  to  any  passenger 
on  the  box-seat. 

11  Pretty  fair,  pretty  fair,"  said  Wil 
liam,  absently  watching  a  cloud  shadow 
chase  across  the  meadows. 

They  rumbled  along  for  nearly  a  mile 
without  a  word,  the  new  postmaster  feel 
ing  vaguely  uncomfortable;  then  Oily 
broke  out: 

"Why,  look  a'  here.  They  ain't  got 
a  cent,  'Mandy  and  her  mother.  If 
they  weren't  in  the  office,  they'd  be  on 
the  town.  Talk  about  puttin'  people 
in  over  'Mandy  and  the  old  lady!  I 
guess  they'd  wish  they  wasn't  put  in. 
I  guess  they'd  be  considerable  put  out!" 
Oily  laughed  at  this  joke  several  times 
90 


PARTNERS 


during  the  next  hour.  "Put  in,  put 
out,"  he  repeated,  chuckling. 

His  passenger  frowned  silently. 
" There!"  he  was  saying  to  himself,  "I 
am  sorry  for  the  women;  but  it  ain't 
for  me  to  say  anything.  I'll  do  my 
duty,  that's  all  I'm  here  for.  The 
women  ain't  my  business.  But  it's 
queer  they  haven't  told  this  young  man 
about  the  change.  I  should  think  they'd 
tell  him,  sure,  seein'  he  carries  the 
mail." 

He  had  no  inclination  now  to  disclose 
his  identity  to  Oily;  he  was  distinctly 
depressed.  "I  don't  want  no  ill-will 
among  the  people,"  he  thought. 

When  they  turned  into  Main  Street 
and  drew  up  at  the  post-office,  he 
glanced  about  curiously  while  Oily  car 
ried  in  the  mail;  then,  looking  up,  he 
saluted  the  flag  hanging  limp  in  the 
warm  stillness.  "I  like  folks  to  be 
patriotic,"  he  said,  in  a  loud  whisper. 
He  had  decided  not  to  call  at  the  office 
91 


PARTNERS 


until  he  had  gone  to  the  tavern  and 
cleaned  up.  That  done,  however,  and  a 
comfortable  dinner  disposed  of,  he  put 
on  his  broad-brimmed  felt  hat  and  went 
with  a  roll  and  a  limp  and  Jimmy  close 
at  his  heels,  down  to  the  office. 

It  was  three  o'clock,  and  Main  Street 
was  quite  deserted;  the  door  of  the 
post-office  was  partly  open,  and  William 
saw  a  tall,  angular  woman  standing 
behind  the  counter  trying  to  fit  one  of 
pasteboard  boxes  into  its  niche  on  the 
shelf  without  wrenching  its  feeble  joints. 
At  his  step  she  turned  with  a  pleased 
look.  "He  hasn't  a  bag,  only  a  dog," 
Amanda  said  to  herself;  "what  can  he 
be?  Veter'nary,  maybe." 

"Good  afternoon,"  said  the  caller, 
taking  off  his  hat,  then  putting  it  on  his 
head  again.  "How  do  you  do,  ma'am?" 

"Good  afternoon,"  returned  Amanda. 
"Fine  day,  sir." 

"Well,  yes,  it  is;  it  is,"  William 
agreed. 

92 


PARTNERS 


"Are  you  stopping  in  town,  sir?"  the 
postmistress  asked.  She  was  not  sur 
prised  that  the  stranger  had  called  at 
the  office;  except  the  church,  it  was 
the  most  important  place  in  Purham. 
Amanda  was  always  gracious,  if  a  little 
formal,  to  people  who  came  to  pay 
their  respects.  She  patted  Jimmy's 
head  as  he  stood  on  his  hind  legs  and 
sniffed  at  the  counter.  The  little  dog's 
patient  brown  eyes  made  her  think  of 
Ponto. 

"Well,  yes/'  said  William,  blankly; 
"lam.  Yes,  I— I—" 

"On  business,  I  presume.  What  is 
your  line?"  said  Amanda,  wishing  to  be 
agreeable;  "dentistry?" 

"Well,  no,"  said  the  caller,  frowning 
very  much;  "no,  I  can't  say  I  am  a 
dentist,  exactly;  no.  I  came  down  to 
call,  ma'am,  on  you.  You  are  Mrs. 
Gedge,  I  presume.  I  understand  you 
run  this  office?" 

Amanda  Gedge's  heart  stood  still. 
93 


PARTNERS 


'The  post-office  belongs  to  mother,'1 
she  said,  faintly. 

"Yes,  just  so;  so  I  understood, "  said 
William  Sprague.  "Well,  perhaps  you 
weren't  looking  for  me  before  the  first 
of  the  month,  but  I  thought  I'd  come. 
I  thought  I'd  get  to  know  the  place, 


ma'am." 


William  sighed  with  embarrassment, 
and  wiped  his  forehead.  He  wished  he 
had  a  bit  of  stick  and  his  knife,  then  he 
would  not  have  to  look  at  her.  The 
slow  whitening  of  her  face,  the  tremor 
of  her  lips  as  she  tried  to  speak,  her 
hands  clutching  the  edge  of  the  counter 
until  the  knuckles  were  white,  were  all 
terrible  to  him.  It  was  like  seeing  some 
dumb  creature  tortured. 

"I  don't  know — what  you  mean,"  she 
said,  in  a  whisper. 

"Well,  I'm  the  new  postmaster,  you 
know,"  William  said,  bending  down  to 
pull  Jimmy's  ears  so  that  he  need  not 
see  her  face;  "and  I  came  to  Purham 

94 


PARTNERS 


a  little  ahead  of  time  so  as  I  could — 
maybe  you'd — I've  no  experience  and 
I  thought — ' '  He  stammered  with  pity ; 
her  rigid  face,  and  wide,  terror-stricken 
brown  eyes  were  too  much  for  him. 
"I  hope  you  are  well,  and  your  ma, 
too,"  he  ended,  weakly. 

"You  will  kill  mother,"  said  Amanda. 
i  "  Ma'am?" 

*  "You  will  kill  her  if  you  turn  her  out 
of  her  post-office." 

William  Sprague  shuffled  his  feet 
noisily  on  the  floor;  then  took  off  his 
hat  and  seemed  to  scan  it  critically. 
"I  ain't  responsible,  Miss  Gedge;  I  was 
sent  here.  The  department  decided  to 
make  a  change,  I  suppose,  and  I  was 
sent  here.  I  didn't  ask  for  the  place." 
:i  "You  must  go  away,"  Amanda  said. 

William's  eyes  glistened.  "This  is 
the  cussedest  business  I  was  ever  in," 
he  said,  under  his  breath.  "Poor  girl! 
Poor  thing!"  He  felt  something  roll 
down  his  cheek,  and  that  helped  him 
95 


PARTNERS 


to  be  angry.  "Well/1  he  said,  sternly, 
"this  ain't  your  affair,  nor  mine.  I'm 
sent.  I  can't  help  it.  I'm  to  be  in  on 
the  first  day  of  June.  I'll  go  away  till 
then.  I'd  just  as  lief  as  not  clear  out 
till  the  first,  if  it  will  oblige  you  any; 
honest,  I  would." 

"You  don't  understand/'  Amanda 
explained,  breathlessly.  "  You  mustn't 
come  back — ever.  Mother's  been  here 
twenty  years.  If  she  was  put  out,  she 
would  die.  She  would  be  on  the  town; 
but  the  worst  thing  to  her,  the  thing  that 
would  kill  her,  would  be  to  be  put  out. 
Oh,  go  away!  You  can  come  back 
when  she  dies.  It  won't  be — very  long. 
Oh,  go — go!"  Amanda  swayed  a  little 
and  sank  forward  over  the  counter,  hid 
ing  her  face  in  her  outstretched  arms. 
She  sobbed  aloud. 

Again  William  wiped  his  brow. 

Amanda  lifted  her  large  face,  quiver 
ing  with  tears.  "Mother's  been  here 
twenty  years — twenty  years !' '  She  held 
96 


PARTNERS 


out  entreating  hands  to  him,  as  if  beg 
ging  for  mercy. 

\William  Sprague  stamped  across  the 
post-office  and  back.  "Well,  ma'am, 
I'm  sorry.  I  don't  mind  sayin'  I'm 
sorry.  I — I — I'm  damned  sorry!  But 
I  don't  see  what  I  can  do  about  it.  If 
I  wasn't  here,  somebody  else  would  be. 
And — well,  I'm  put  here,  and  I'm  one 
that  stays  where  I'm  put,  when  it's  my 
duty."  ' 

"Mother's  done  her  duty,"  said 
Amanda. 

"I  ain't  a-questionin'  that,  of  course," 
William  assured  her.  "She's  all  right. 
But  the  party  has  changed.  The 
Democrats  are  in.  Now  you  and 
your  mother  ain't  Democrats,  so — out 
you  go!" 

"What!"  cried  Amanda,  looking  at 
him  with  sudden  hope.  "Not  Demo 
crats?  Good  gracious,  if  that's  the  trou 
ble,  we'll  be  Democrats  right  off!  It 
doesn't  make  a  mite  of  difference  to  us. 
97 


PARTNERS 


We'd  just  as  lief  be  Democrats.  So  you 
can  go  away  right  off!" 

"My  Lord!"  said  William  Sprague, 
despairingly. 

"If  they  had  only  told  us,"  said 
Amanda,  "we'd  have  changed  in  No 
vember." 

"Well,  ma'am,"  the  visitor  said, 
sighing,  "I  guess  I'll  go  up  to  the  hotel 
and  rest  a  bit;  maybe  we  can  talk 
it  over  later  in  the  evening.  I'll  come 
in  after  supper,  and  talk  it  over  with 
you  and  your  mother."  William  was 
actually  fatigued  with  the  hopelessness 
of  the  situation. 

"No,  we  can't  talk  before  her," 
Amanda  said.  "She  mustn't  know  any 
thing  about  it.  After  the  mail's  in,  I'll 
walk  down  to  the  bridge,  and  if  you'll 
be  there,  I'll  explain  why  we  can't  leave 
the  office,  and  you'll  understand,  and  go 
away." 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  meeting  at  the  bridge  was  pro 
ductive  of  nothing  but  another  talk ; 
after  which  William  decided  that  his 
offer  to  leave  Purham  until  the  ist  of 
June  was  unwise.  "I've  got  to  stay  and 
face  the  music,"  he  told  himself,  grimly. 
The  " music"  was  Amanda's  protesting 
despair,  and  his  way  of  facing  it  was  to 
urge  her  to  be  "reasonable."  "There's 
no  way  out  of  it,"  William  told  her,  sym 
pathetically.  "  You  can't  buck  the 
United  States  Government!"  He  made 
this  so  clear  to  the  Public,  that  in  a  very 
short  time  Mrs.  Gedge  was  the  only 
person  in  Purham  who  did  not  under 
stand  the  situation;  but  everybody 
united  with  her  daughter  in  concealing 
it  from  her. 

99 


PARTNERS 


Mr.  Sprague  was  so  sympathetic,  in 
spite  of  his  determination  to  "have  the 
place"  that  he  was  not  very  much  dis 
liked.  He  made  everybody  understand 
that  he  was  the  unwilling  tool  of  cir 
cumstances;  he  could  not  help  himself. 
"For,"  as  he  explained  a  dozen  times 
a  day,  "if  I  didn't  come,  somebody 
else  would,  and  it  would  be  just  as  bad 
on  'Mandy."  (He  had  adopted  the 
customs  of  the  village  at  once,  and 
called  everybody  by  their  first  names.) 

A  week  of  protest  and  insistence 
slipped  by;  to  Amanda  it  was  a  long 
daze  of  terror ;  to  the  new  postmaster  it 
was  pitiful  but  inevitable.  He  was  as 
kind  as  possible  to  Amanda;  one  day  he 
presented  her  with  a  little  blue  glass 
dish,  in  the  shape  of  a  shell,  and  the  next 
he  gathered  a  bunch  of  wild  flowers— 
London-pride  and  dog-tooth  violets  and 
Quaker-ladies,  handing  them  in  to  her 
through  the  delivery  window.  Amanda 
accepted  them  listlessly.  She  explained 

100 


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to  her  mother  that  the  gentleman  who 
was  stopping  up  at  the  tavern — "that 
big  red  man  you  saw  on  the  stage,  who 
comes  to  the  office  'most  every  day 
with  his  dog" — he  had  given  her  the 
flowers,  she  said. 

With  this  new  interest  Mrs.  Gedge 
revived  like  some  poor,  faded  flower, 
that  looks  up  for  a  moment  in  the  rain. 
"Why,  child,"  she  said,  "you've  got  a 
beau!  I  think  you  might  ask  him  in 
some  time,  'Mandy,  to  see  me." 
ei  William  Sprague  made  the  same  sug 
gestion.  "I'd  like  to  see  your  ma, 
'Mandy;  'course,  I  won't  say  a  word  to 
her,  but  I'd  just  like  to  see  how  the 
land  lays." 

So  Amanda  had  no  choice  but  to 
arrange  a  meeting.  "Will  you  come  in 
this  afternoon?"  she  said,  dully. 

"You  bet  I  will!"  said  William. 

Mrs.  Gedge,  when  she  heard  that  he 
was  coming,  was  filled  with  excited 
hospitality.  "Now  'Mandy,  you  just 

8  101 


PARTNERS 


get  to  work  and  dust  up.  Now,  come, 
child,  be  spry!  He'll  be  here  before  you 
know  it.  Dear!  if  I  only  had  my  legs!" 
She  sighed,  for  Amanda,  duster  in  hand, 
moved  slowly  about  in  heavy  silence. 
"  That's  the  way  with  girls  now-a-days !" 
Mrs.  Gedge  thought,  impatiently;  "they 
take  their  beaux  for  granted,  and  won't 
make  a  mite  of  effort  for  'em!  Wa'n't 
so  when  I  was  young.  But  'Mandy  is 
getting  on;  she'd  ought  to  take  pains!" 
The  faded  place  in  the  carpet  near 
the  south  window  gave  her  a  mo 
mentary  pang—  "but  there!"  she  said  to 
herself;  "if  'Mandy  takes  him,  I  guess 
he  can  buy  her  a  new  carpet  one  of  these 
days."  An  hour  before  the  visitor  was 
due  to  arrive,  Mrs.  Gedge  put  on  her 
best  cap,  shook  out  the  folds  of  a  clean 
handkerchief,  and  drew  Amanda's  blue 
plaid  shawl  about  her  shoulders.  Sud 
denly  a  thought  struck  her.  ' l  'Mandy,  I 
believe  those  black  mitts  of  mine  are  in 
that  old  cigar  box  in  the  right  -  hand 

IO2 


PARTNERS 


corner,  back,  of  my  top  drawer.  Do 
look,  'Mandy.  There,  child,  hurry! 
My,  you  ain't  fast." 

Amanda  found  the  little  black  silk 
mitts,  and  pulled  them  gently  on  to  the 
crippled  hands ;  then  she  placed  her  moth 
er's  chair  on  the  most  faded  spot  in  the 
carpet,  and  sat  down  to  await  the  caller. 

William  Sprague  found  the  old  crip 
pled  postmistress  sitting  up  very  straight, 
her  mitted  hands  crossed  in  front  of 
her. 

She  gave  him  a  keen  look:  " If  he  has 
means,"  she  said  to  herself,  "he  looks 
like  he'd  make  a  girl  a  good  husband; 
—if  Mandy  will  only  set  up  and  be 
pleasant!"  She  made  a  little  gesture  of 
impatience,  for  it  was  plain  that  'Mandy 
had  no  intention  of  "  setting  up."  Mrs. 
Gedge,  herself,  was  very  pleasant.  She 
was  formal,  but  that  was  only  at  ^first: 
Was  Mr.  Sprague  staying  long  in  Pur- 
ham?  Well,  yes;  Mr.  Sprague  ^thought 
he'd  probably  settle  in  Purham. 
103 


PARTNERS 


("He's  not  in  business,"  Mrs.  Gedge 
thought,  with  elation,  "so,  if  he's  going 
to  settle  here,  he  must  have  means!") 
Aloud,  she  observed  that  Purham  was  a 
"pretty  place." 

"Well,  'tis  so,"  William  agreed;  and 
asked  how  long  Mrs.  Gedge  had  lived 
here. 

"Always,"  Mrs.  Gedge  said;  "and 
pretty  nigh  always  in  the  Post-office, 
too.  I  have  had  the  office  more  than 
twenty  years.  I  call  my  daughter 
'Mandy  my  'partner'  sometimes." 

William  murmured  something  to  the 
effect  that  Miss  Gedge  was  pretty 
smart,  housekeeping,  and  running  a 
post-office,  too. 

Amanda,  standing  with  a  stony  face 
behind  her  mother's  chair,  looked  at 
him  as  he  said  "post-office,"  her  eyes 
filling  with  terror;  he  nodded,  reassur 
ingly.  Mrs.  Gedge  did  not  notice  their 
glances;  she  had  her  own  business  to 
attend  to: 

104 


PARTNERS 


"Praise  to  the  face,"  she  said,  smiling 
and  nodding,  "  Praise  to  the  face  is  open 
disgrace;  but  I  must  say  the  child  is 
smart.  She's  a  capable  girl,  sir,  and  a 
good  housekeeper.  The  man  that  gets 
Amanda,"  she  added,  significantly,  "will 
be  sure  of  a  meal  of  victuals  any  hour 
of  the  day."  Mr.  Sprague  did  not  take 
up  the  subject  of  housekeeping :  he  said 
that  he  should  think  Mrs.  Gedge  would 
be  about  tired  of  the  office;  "you've 
been  here  so  long,"  he  ended,  pleading. 

Mrs.  Gedge  had  her  reasons  for  being 
agreeable,  but  she  could  not  allow  any 
talk  like  that;  her  voice  was  distinctly 
less  friendly:  "In  my  position  I  can't 
think  of  myself.  We  are  glad,  'Mandy 
and  me,  to  be  in  the  service,  and  would 
never  think  of  being  tired."  Then  she 
returned  to  the  affair  she  had  in  hand; 
"Besides,  as  I  say,  'Mandy's  capable. 
She  takes  a  good  deal  off  me." 

"  But  you've  been  here  a  good  while," 
William  persisted.  He  was  not  making 
105 


PARTNERS 


the  point  he  had  hoped  to;  he  looked 
about  the  room  in  an  embarrassed  way 
and  wished  he  had  not  come. 

"Yes;  'Mandy  was  only  twenty-five 
when  we  got  the  office,"  Mrs.  Gedge 
admitted,  "and  that  was  a  good  bit 
ago,  but  she's  kept  her  looks.  There, 
child,  you  needn't  poke  me.  I  guess 
your  mother  can  say  that !  You've  been 
a  real  good  girl,  'Mandy,  too.  Well, 
now,  sir,  how  do  you  like  Purham?" 

William  found  this  much  more  com 
fortable  ground,  even  though  Mrs. 
Gedge,  in  the  most  delicate  way  in  the 
world,  said  that  she  understood  he  was 
a  widower,  and,  of  course,  it  was  lonely 
for  him  in  a  strange  place  like  Purham. 
"You  ought  to  get  married.  A  man  of 
your  years  needs  a  good  housekeeper 
to  look  after  him,"  she  said,  emphati 
cally.  When  he  rose  to  go,  she  said  she 
hoped  he'd  come  often  to  see  her  and 
'Mandy.  "Of  course,  in  our  position 
we  haven't  much  time;  but  I'm  sure 

106 


PARTNERS 


I'll  be  glad  to  do  anything  I  can  for 
you,"  she  ended,  with  friendly  patron 
age; — "and  I  guess  you  and  'Mandy 
can  find  something  to  talk  about — ain't 
that  so,  'Mandy?"  Mrs.  Gedge  was 
quite  arch. 

"Yes,"  said  Amanda,  faintly. 

Her  mother  made  a  little  impatient 
cluck  between  her  teeth;  it  was  real 
silly  for  Amanda  to  be  so  shy!  She 
hadn't  said  a  word  since  the  man  had 
been  here;  Mrs.  Gedge  didn't  know 
what  girls  were  coming  to  nowadays— 
never  making  a  mite  of  effort  to  be 
agreeable!  Mrs.  Gedge  herself  had  cer 
tainly  been  agreeable;  but  her  visitor 
went  away  with  a  very  sober  face. 

It  was  only  a  few  days  now  until  the 
change  must  be  made.  Amanda  had 
altered  so  that  Mrs.  Gedge  would  have 
been  alarmed  but  for  this  interest  of  a 
beau.  Not  that  she  named  Mr.  Sprague 
thus  to  Amanda;  she  asked  every  con 
ceivable  question  about  him,  but  she 
107 


PARTNERS 


nursed  her  hope  in  silence,  with  small 
chuckles  when  she  was  alone,  and  with 
knowing  looks  and  nods  when  the  neigh 
bors  came  in  to  gossip.  She  was  too 
interested  in  this  very  personal  happi 
ness  to  notice  any  constraint  in  the  talk 
of  Sally  Goodrich  or  Mrs.  Dace  or  any 
one  else;  but  there  was  constraint,  for 
all  the  village  was  intent  on  shielding 
her  as  long  as  possible  from  the  dreadful 
knowledge  that  threatened  her. 

There  was  nothing  to  hope  for  now; 
Amanda  had  " bucked  the  Government/' 
in  vain.  Her  frantic  appeal  to  the  de 
partment  had  finally  been  answered  by 
a  brief  statement  of  her  mother's  in 
efficiency.  Once,  before  the  answer 
came,  she  lay  awake  all  night  to  plan  a 
journey  to  Washington:  she  could  take 
Mrs.  Gedge's  one  hundred  dollars  out  of 
the  bank,  and  go.  For  a  moment,  the 
impossibility  of  making  any  explanation 
to  her  mother  of  so  tremendous  an  under 
taking,  balked  her;  then  feverishly,  she 
108 


PARTNERS 


put  the  explanation  aside  to  think  out 
details:  she  would  go  to  Washington, 
and  see  the  President — but  the  very 
next  day  came  that  brief  communication 
from  the  Post-office  Department. 

William  Sprague,  stolidly,  but  with 
the  kindest  pity  in  his  twinkling  eyes, 
assured  her  that  there  was  nothing  more 
to  do;  —  " except  get  a  move  on,"  he 
said,  sighing.  He  was  really  very  much 
upset  about  it  all.  "Darn  that  cuss, 
Hamilton,  puttin'  me  in  such  a  box," 
he  said  to  himself  more  than  once. 
Amanda  felt  no  resentment  toward 
him;  she  believed  him  implicitly  when 
he  told  her  it  was  not  his  fault  —  he 
could  not  help  it;  he  had  been  sent. 

The  first  of  June  was  on  Monday;  on 
the  preceding  Thursday,  Amanda,  her 
face  set  in  haggard  silence,  went  up  to 
the  graveyard.  She  had  decided  to 
break  the  news  to  her  mother  the  next 
morning;  but  first  she  would  go  and 
sit  by  Willie  for  a  while,  not  only  for 
109 


PARTNERS 


the  comfort  of  it,  but  to  be  by  herself 
so  that  she  could  plan  what  she  should 
do  when  their  salary  ceased.  William 
Sprague  had  told  her  that  her  mother 
must  apply  for  a  pension;  but  he  had 
admitted  that  it  would  take  time  to 
secure  it.  And  meantime — well;  there 
was  the  hundred  dollars  in  the  bank, 
from  which  Mrs.  Gedge  received  three 
dollars  and  fifty  cents  a  year.  That  was 
all.  They  owned  their  house,  but  it  was 
of  no  value  save  as  a  shelter.  No  one 
would  buy  or  rent  it.  Everybody  in 
Purham  had  a  house  of  his  own — every 
body  except  Mr.  Sprague,  and  he  had  at 
once  announced  that  he  was  going  to  live 
in  the  tavern,  that  being  cheaper,  and 
more  comfortable  than  housekeeping,  for 
a  single  man.  Amanda  could  sew,  but 
who  would  give  her  work?  All  the 
women  in  Purham  did  their  own  sewing, 
except  when  Mrs.  Dace  helped  them 
with  the  rare  occurrence  of  a  new  dress. 
She  could  go  up  to  the  tavern  and  assist 
no 


PARTNERS 


Mrs.  Thyme  in  the  summer;  but  at  two 
dollars  a  week  for  twelve  weeks — Mrs. 
Thyme's  summer  boarders  rarely  stayed 
longer  than  twelve  weeks — she  could 
only  earn  twenty-four  dollars. 

Amanda  thought  this  all  out,  sitting 
there  on  the  grass  by  Willie,  her  elbows 
on  her  knees,  her  eyes  staring  blankly 
at  a  mullein-stalk  swaying  in  the  wind. 
"Oh,  I  wish  mother  might  die  before 
she  knew  it,"  this  old  daughter  said  from 
her  aching  heart.  She  saw  no  other  way 
to  save  the  heartbreak,  the  pride  that 
must  be  trampled  down,  the  violent 
breaking  of  all  the  habits  of  life — the 
misery  of  transplanted  age!  Amanda 
had  no  more  tears,  but  she  drew  in  her 
breath  in  a  sort  of  moan.  She  thought 
suddenly  of  those  days  of  anxiety  about 
the  album.  How  could  she  have  been 
worried  over  so  little  a  thing!  How 
gladly  would  she  exchange  this  new  de 
spair  for  that  old  pain  .... 

"'Mandy!"  some  one  shouted  from 
in 


PARTNERS 


the  road.  It  was  William  Sprague;  he 
was  pushing  the  sagging  gate  back 
across  the  grass  and  coming  into  the 
cemetery.  "I  want  to  speak  to  you, 
'Mandy,"  he  said,  in  his  loud,  cheerful 
voice.  "Your  mother  said  she  believed 
you  was  up  here.  If  you  don't  mind, 
I'll  talk  to  you  a  bit."  He  had  reached 
her  by  this  time,  and  stood  watching  her 
with  friendly  concern.  Jimmy  came 
and  sniffed  her  hand,  then  licked  it  with 
his  little  rough  tongue.  Amanda  did 
not  notice  him,  and  William  shook  his 
head.  "Why,"  he  thought,  "she  don't 
see  Jimmy!  She  must  be  awful  cut  up 
not  to  see  Jimmy. 

'"Handy,"  he  said,  "I've  thought  of 
something.  It  isn't  perhaps  just  the 
thing  you'd  like,  but  it's  the  only  way 
out  of  the  darned  mess.  And  I'm  will- 
in'.  Well,  I— I'd  really  like  it,  'Mandy." 

Amanda's  lips  parted;  her  eyes  di 
lated.  "A  way  out?" 

"Get  married!"  said  William, 

112 


PARTNERS 


Amanda  stared  at  him. 

"I  mean  you  and  me,"  William  ex 
plained.  "It's  like  this :  your  ma  would 
be  pleased,  and  she'd  never  know  any 
thing.  I'd  be  pleased;  I'd  have  a  home, 
and  I'd  be  comfortable.  You'd  be 
pleased,  'cause  you  wouldn't  be  worried 
about  money.  And  I  don't  mind  being 
married  the  least  bit;  honest,!  don't.  I 
like  you,  'Mandy.  It's  only  fair  to  say  I 
like  you.  I  told  your  ma  I  liked  you,  and 
I  was  comin'  up  here  to  tell  you  so." 

"You  told  mother?"  said  Amanda,  in 
a  whisper. 

"You  haven't  thought  that  way  about 
me,  I  know,"  he  apologized,  "and  of 
course  it's  sudden  and  we'd  have  to  be 
spry;  we'd  have  to  get  spliced  before 
Monday.  But  just  look  at  it,  'Mandy: 
it's  the  only  way  to  get  ahead  of  Mr. 
Hamilton,  confound  him!  I  wish  I'd 
let  him  get  that  ball  that  was  meant 
for  him.  'Course,  we'd  never  let  on  to 
your  ma  why  we  did  it;  she  could  con 
ns 


PARTNERS 


sider  me  a  third  '  partner,' '  he  said, 
winking:  "But  besides  makin'  it  right 
for  her,  it  would  be  agreeable  to  me. 
As  I  say,  I  think  you're  a  nice  girl,  I 
like  you.  Now,  if  you  can  only  just 
make  up  your  mind  to  me?" 

Amanda  Gedge  put  her  hand  down  on 
the  grass  as  though  she  were  groping  for 
some  other  hand  to  help  her.  "Oh, 
what  shall  I  do?"  she  said. 

William  Sprague  sat  down  beside  her, 
then  remembered  the  imprudence  of 
sitting  on  the  grass  in  May,  and  rose. 
"I  thought  it  all  out,"  he  assured  her, 
"and  it  come  to  me  last  night  all  of  a 
sudden.  'Well,  there!'  says  I  to  my 
self,  'weren't  'Mandy  and  me  a  couple 
of  fools  not  to  think  of  that  way  of 
settlin'  this  hash!'  What  do  you  say?" 

She  had  nothing  to  say.  She  put  her 
hands  over  her  face.  "  Oh,  Willie!11  she 
said,  under  her  breath. 

"Well,  now,  there!  That's  right!" 
said  William,  heartily.  "My  first  wife 
114 


PARTNERS 


called  me  Willie,  and  I  like  to  hear  it 
again.  Yes;  we'll  get  along  first  rate, 
'Mandy;  me  and  you  and  Jimmy  and 
the  old  lady.  Come,  now,  it's  all  set 
tled,  ain't  it?" 

She  drew  a  half-sobbing  breath  before 
she   could   speak.     "Oh,    I    must   save 
mother!    and  you  are  so  kind,  so  very, 
very    kind    to    think    of    this    way- 
William." 


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